Are you hoping for a new year, new you? It’s all possible with a little habit change.
When it comes to our daily habits, the skin tells all. When we’re hydrated, rested, and happy, we look youthful and healthy. But when bad habits take over? Wrinkles, sagging, dryness, dark circles, and breakouts tell a different story.
With a fresh new year ahead, let’s focus on releasing those habits that hide our skin’s true beauty. Here we’ll cover 8 habits that are keeping you from looking and feeling your best. Ditch these and take on healthier New Year habits to reveal the younger-looking skin you deserve!
Ditch These 8 Habits for Younger Looking Skin this Year
1. Avoiding exercise or overexercising.
Exercising more is one of the most popular New Year’s resolutions. Many of us hope to shed a few extra pounds or feel naturally energized. These are great reasons to start exercising more regularly, but so is protecting your skin!
Exercise is one of the best ways to keep your skin healthy and youthful from head to toe. Exercise flushes every cell of the body with fresh blood, oxygen, hydration, and nutrients. It helps the body detox and promotes healthy waste removal, which is crucial for clear and vibrant skin. Having a routine also keeps your mood and energy up. Less frowning leads to fewer wrinkles!
But overexercising could be damaging your skin, too. Researchers suggest that high-intensity exercise for over 90 minutes can lead to more free radical damage and collagen breakdown (i.e., aging). Excessive sweating also depletes your body of key nutrients and hydration, leaving your skin dry, papery, or inflamed.
Finding balance in your exercise routine can help you continue to enjoy healthy movement and protect your skin against aging. Consider swapping a few heavy sweat sessions with yin yoga, strength training, or calming walks.
Create a Better Habit: Make exercise a daily habit you love.
2. Going to bed without a skincare ritual.
Do long days have you jumping into bed without removing your makeup? Make this the year you create a skincare ritual that works for your skin – and your schedule.
Going to bed with makeup on (or the day’s oils and grime) may cause more damage to your skin than you think. Old makeup and dirt clog the pores and cause irritation, blemishes, and rough skin. These residues also prevent the skin from doing its most important function at night: breathing and renewing. As a result, the skin becomes tired, dry, dull, and prone to wrinkling.
A simple nighttime skincare routine reduces these signs of aging while enhancing the skin’s rejuvenation. Take care to cleanse, moisturize, and relax the skin during your ritual. Then prepare for a great night’s sleep!
During a Wellnest Denver acupuncture session, we’ll go over the best skin care products and routines for your unique skin. We’ll also help you create lasting habits to make caring for your skin at night easy and rewarding.
Create a Better Habit: Create a skincare routine that grows with you.
3. Touching your face.
This year, we all became a little more aware of how often we touch our faces and how this contributes to the spread of germs. Still, researchers estimate that the average person touches their face up to 23 times per hour!
If you need another reason to kick the habit of touching your face, consider the damage it does to your skin. Touching your face (and other habits like skin picking) adds and spreads germs and dirt to your skin while also pulling and pressing on delicate facial tissue. This leads to breakouts, irritation, sagging, and wrinkles.
Create a Better Habit: Easy tips to help you stop touching your face.
4. Overdoing it with caffeine and alcohol.
Got a coffee habit? What about that daily glass of wine (or three) to wind down? While coffee and alcohol can help pick us up or calm us down on occasion, overdoing it can cause a host of health problems. One of the most noticeable effects is aging skin.
Caffeine and alcohol both dehydrate the skin. Without adequate hydration, the skin cells shrink, kind of like deflated balloons. This makes the skin look lackluster, saggy, and older than it is.
And while in small amounts, coffee and certain alcohols (like red wine) can have antioxidant effects, overdoing it will lead to aging. Excessive caffeine and alcohol can increase oxidative damage to the skin, the precursor to aging.
For better skin, a clearer mind, and a healthier body, cut down (or cut out!) caffeine and alcohol this year.
Create a Better Habit: Try some delicious mocktail recipes that are actually good for you.
5. Snacking on sweets.
When it comes to achieving younger-looking skin, sugar is not so sweet. Studies show that sugar ages the skin through a process called glycation. Glycation breaks down collagen and elastin, making the skin more susceptible to fine lines, wrinkles, and sagging. In addition to reducing the skin’s healthy tone and vibrancy, glycation also contributes to other signs of aging like chronic disease.
Sugar also causes widespread irritation and harmful inflammation in the body, making acne, rosacea, and dryness even worse.
If your go-to snack is something sugary, let’s make a few healthy swaps. Here are a few ideas to keep you satisfied while maintaining your healthy, youthful skin:
- Sodas and sugary drinks: fruit-infused water
- Coffee treats: matcha latte, herbal coffee, sweetened with raw honey
- Ice cream: greek yogurt with fruit
- Candy bars: Healthy energy balls
- Afternoon pick-me-up sweets: protein snacks like hummus, hard-boiled eggs, or natural nut butter.
Create a Better Habit: Why Chinese medicine is better than any fad diet.
6. Ignoring your environment.
In Denver, we have so much to be thankful for when it comes to the natural beauty of our city. But, with all that Colorado offers comes a few things we need to watch out for when protecting our skin: sun, wind, dryness, and pollution.
Sunscreen is a must in any location, but especially with Denver’s reliably sunny skies. Sun damage is one of the biggest culprits in premature aging, wrinkles, and sunspots (not to mention skin cancer). Thankfully, it is also one of the easiest issues to prevent. Wear a non-toxic sunscreen whenever you venture outside – summer or winter!
Another common thing we forget to do is consider our environment when choosing our facial products and routines. Where you live will impact how much moisture, repair, or detoxification your skin will need. In Denver, many of us need a little more moisture and repair than those who live in more tropical climates. At your Wellnest Denver acupuncture visit, we can help you determine what skin care products and routines your skin needs most.
Create a Better Habit: Protect your skin in winter with these Chinese Medicine tips.
7. Letting stress take over.
Stress is at the root of many of our health issues, but does it really affect our skin? As it turns out, unresolved stress is one of the biggest culprits in some of our most annoying skin conditions, from acne to aging.
Chronic stress wreaks havoc on would-be healthy skin in a variety of ways:
- Stress causes a breakdown in healthy elastin and collagen.
- Stress blocks nutrients and hydration from reaching the outer layers of skin, leading to dryness, itching, cracking, and sagging.
- Stress weakens the immune system which can lead to rashes or acne.
- Stress causes us to furrow our brows or frown, which encourages wrinkle formation.
- Stress can cause grey hair and hair loss by damaging the cells that produce our hair’s melanin (color).
Taking a stand against stress is always a good idea. Thankfully, these days there are so many different ways to combat stress that the only trick is finding the routine or exercises that work for you.
At Wellnest Denver, we have found the best success in a mind-body approach to stress relief. Certain techniques (like acupuncture, progressive muscle relaxation, or yoga) use the body’s innate mechanisms to trigger the brain and body to release stress.
Create a Better Habit: How acupuncture helps you relieve stress while you rest.
8. Procrastinating about investing in your skin.
Investing time, energy, and money into your skincare may feel like taking a plunge, but it’s well worth your efforts! Our skin has an amazing ability to heal and rejuvenate, but it needs the resources to do so.
The best way to care for your skin now and in the future is with a holistic skin care treatment plan created just for you and your needs. Wellnest Denver offers facial acupuncture and expert natural solutions to reduce the signs of aging, all while reducing stress and improving your overall health.
Not only does a course of facial acupuncture help you look and feel amazing now, but we’ll set the foundation for healthier, younger-looking skin for years to come. Click here to schedule your facial acupuncture consultation. Together, we’ll create a plan and New Year habits that fit your skin’s needs, your lifestyle, and your beauty goals.
Create a Better Habit: Why an acupuncture facial at Wellnest Denver is better than Botox.
Reveal Younger Looking Skin in 2021
At Wellnest Denver, we are dedicated to making you feel good inside and out. We know that the past year has been more than stressful, and that oftentimes our skin takes a hit when life gets tough.
With a fresh year ahead, let’s take stock of our current habits and pave the way for a much better year – and better, younger-looking skin!
Ready to transform your skin and your health this year? The first step takes just a few clicks. Book your Denver facial acupuncture consultation today!
