It seems that more and more people are worried about skin aging recently.
Are you also concerned about the aging of your skin? if you can have five lifestyles and keep them up, you can prevent skin aging.
We all know that as time goes by, everyone ages, but most people, including you and me, don’t like to grow old.
Our skin begins aging physiologically when we are over 25, but we cannot stop this natural aging, that is, Intrinsic Aging.
Have you ever heard from others that you look older than your actual age?
Or have you ever felt that you looked older than your friends of the same age when you looked at your face in the mirror?
If you had that experience, it would have been a very difficult and stressful situation for you to endure.
Why does my face look so much older than my friends who are about the same age, even if I can’t help it about intrinsic aging?
On the other hand, various external factors promote aging in our daily lives, and aging due to these factors is called Extrinsic Aging.
Because aging is the result of an accumulation of microscopic changes and stimuli that occur over a long period of time, if we can reduce these external factors or stimuli, we can slow down Extrinsic Aging.
So let’s take a look at 5 lifestyle habits we must have to keep our skin younger for longer.
1. Avoid UV rays.
Ultraviolet rays have the greatest adverse effect on skin aging.
Except for intrinsic aging, the biggest cause of skin aging is ultraviolet rays.
Ultraviolet protection is really important because there are doctors who also say 80% of facial aging is caused by these rays.
They are divided into three types according to wavelength.
In the case of UVA, the intensity is weak but the wavelength is long, so it penetrates the skin a lot and penetrates deep into the skin, causing damage to the dermis.
UVB, on the other hand, mainly affects the epidermis, damaging cells in the epidermis and also affecting the upper layers of the dermis.
If the skin is repeatedly exposed to ultraviolet rays, the amount of collagen, elastin and moisture-pulling ingredients in the dermis will be destroyed and gradually reducing amount them.
Eventually, the skin shrinks and the elasticity drops, deepening the wrinkles.
As such, the frequent exposure of the skin to ultraviolet rays is a representative cause of skin aging.
In experiments, when measuring the effectiveness of sunscreen, the amount of it applied to the skin is 2mm per 1cm2, which is much more than what we apply to our skin in real life.
So you spread its amount on your skin that makes you feel like you are applying a little too much sunscreen to block ultraviolet rays and reapply it on your skin at three or four hours intervals.
2. Keep away from heat as possible.
Heat in daily life also adversely affects skin aging.
Heat penetrates deep into the skin because it belongs to infrared rays and has a very long wavelength.
Therefore, if you stay at a high temperature such as a sauna for a long time, the heat irritation on the skin can weaken the skin, which can speed up skin aging.
In addition, even with low heat, if the skin is constantly exposed to the heat for a long time, it penetrates the skin steadily, so skin aging due to heat inevitably proceeds.
3. Quit smoking.
Smoking is a bad lifestyle that makes your own skin promote skin aging.
Smoking can rapidly age the skin. According to a survey conducted by a dermatology lab at the Seoul National University of Medicine, people who smoked one pack a day for more than 30 years showed 2.8 times more symptoms of skin aging than those who did not smoke at all.
When you smoke, the cigarette smoke you drink directly affects the skin in the process of coming out of the body, destroying collagen and elastin in the skin, making the skin thin, and promoting its aging.
That’s why if you really don’t want your skin to age, you should quit smoking today.
4. Often eat antioxidant foods.
Antioxidant foods help prevent skin aging by inhibiting active oxygen.
90% of the diseases that cause aging are associated with active oxygen.
Active oxygen is the main culprit that attacks our body’s cells and DNA and causes various chronic diseases and aging.
Known as the exhaust gas of our body, it is created in the process of digesting food and creating energy, and eliminating bacteria or viruses that have invaded our body.
The various nutrients that come into the body are converted into energy only when combined with oxygen, and the byproducts produced at this time are active oxygen.
If the amount of active oxygen increases too much, it attacks the human body. It is called ‘Oxidative Stress’ that the concentration of active oxygen increases and damages normal cells.
This oxidative stress promotes skin aging.
Active oxygen is not completely removed by internal antioxidant enzymes that are self-produced in the body, so external antioxidants should be taken.
Eating foods containing antioxidant nutrients that inhibit active oxygen is also a good way to do it.
If you want to suppress skin aging, it is good to eat carrots, broccoli, beets, tomatoes, avocados, kiwis, and pistachios, which are fruits and vegetables containing antioxidant nutrients often.
And don’t forget to drink water often to replenish your skin’s moisture.
5. Practice a skincare routine focused on moisturizing.
A skincare routine focused on skin moisturizing helps you escape the stress of skin aging.
As mentioned earlier, our skin starts to age at the age of 25 and the humidity control function becomes weak, so we gradually feel the skin dry.
The stratum corneum, called the skin barrier, consists of dead skin cells and lipid components, each of which consists of a 1:1 ratio of ceramide, cholesterol, and fatty acids to prevent the evaporation of water.
However, as the skin ages, the skin barrier weakens because the thickness of the epidermis, dermis and subcutaneous fat layer becomes thinner and less elastic.
Eventually, various bacteria and skin irritants penetrate the skin, causing dermatitis, and the moisture in the skin is taken to the outside through the damaged skin barrier, causing itching.
If you scratch the skin to relieve itching, the skin barrier becomes weaker, causing a vicious cycle to repeat.
Therefore, just as we keep our daily habits such as taking vitamin C and drinking water frequently so that we do not catch a cold, we can prevent skin aging as well as skin health only if we are constantly interested in moisture care in our skin and take care of it.
The moisture content in the skin is a barometer that measures the age of the skin and further suggests the physical health condition.
If the moisture is sufficient in the skin, the skin looks clear and the skin elasticity is strengthened and can effectively prevent wrinkles.
Because moisture is the element that connects the fibers in the skin that influence the skin elasticity such as collagen or elastin, the skin elasticity decreases when the moisture level in the skin is lowered.
So the essence of anti-aging to suppress skin aging is skincare that makes skin moist enough.
Since South Korea is a country that has created a new category of “Skin Care” in the makeup-oriented global cosmetics industry, skincare products for skin moisturization are developed and sold in various types.
If you use these skincare products to create a skincare routine that keeps the moisture in your skin and keeps it consistently, you will be able to effectively suppress skin aging.
