LEAN BODY OPTIMAL
WELLNESS
Over 40? These Are The Top 10 Anti-Aging Regimens You Should Include In Your Routine
BY LEAN BODY OPTIMAL
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While you can’t stop the aging process there are things you can do to slow down and influence the appearance of aging. Lifestyle habits and genetics can certainly influence and predispose your health to troublesome conditions, but that doesn't mean the quest for a strong body, or a glowing complexion is a lost cause.
From your daily routines to the foods you eat, keeping your body in its best condition is one of the healthiest habits you can do for yourself.
1. Get Enough Quality Sleep
Take your sleep seriously, it is called beauty sleep for a reason. When you’re lacking sleep, your body can’t function at its prime. Sleep gives your body time to refresh and renew itself. Sleep helps the body to repair itself and deep sleep plays a role in keeping the hormones balanced. Sleep is a time during which the body is hard at work repairing damage caused by daily stress and other harmful exposure.
Your cells produce and secrete human growth hormone while you are sleeping, which helps tissues in the body grow and repair damage to cells and helps skin stay supple and elastic. Not getting quality sleep puts your body into stress mode causing it to release cortisol and other stress hormones, that can damage collagen and elastin reducing your skin’s ability to repair itself.
Not getting enough sleep in your 40’s will lead to puffy bags under your eyes, dryness and more visible wrinkles. 8 hours of sleep can help in making your skin look less aged.
Germ Fighting - to help you ward off illnesses, your immune system identifies harmful bacteria and viruses in your body and destroys them. Ongoing lack of sleep changes the way your immune cells work. They may not attack as quickly, and you could get sick more often. Good nightly rest now can help you avoid that tired, worn-out feeling, as well as spending days in bed as your body tries to recover.
Less sleep also increases the possibility of fatigue, low energy, and poor focus. Besides robbing you of energy and time for muscle repair, lack of sleep saps your motivation, which is what gets you to the finish line.
Try your best to get a proper 8 hours of sleep so you can not only feel rested but also reduce the risk of early aging caused by poor sleeping habits.
2. Use a Silk Pillow Case
There is no better feeling than the soft, smooth and luxuriousness of silk against your skin when you go to bed at night. Thankfully, silk pillowcases exist to give you the beauty sleep of your dreams.
Silk pillowcases create a smooth surface for your hair and skin to glide over. Have you ever woken up with a sleep crease? As skin ages, it loses elasticity and sleep creases which are caused by friction and pressure on facial skin. Since skin is susceptible to wrinkling, make sure that the material pressing against your face is as soft as possible. For the best results, it is recommended to use silk pillowcases.
3. Stay Hydrated
Drinking enough water is essential to your health no matter what age you are, but it becomes especially key when you get older. Adults are about 60% water and proper hydration helps lubricate cartilage and joints to help function properly as you get older.
Hydration is also one of the most important factors for healthy luminous skin. Often you think you are drinking enough water to be hydrated, but flaky/dry/rough skin may tell you otherwise. Water is an easy way to give your skin a healthy glow, especially as you age. You may have heard you need 8 glasses a day, but there is no set advice on how much to drink.
4. Always Use Sunscreen and SPF
Protect your skin from the sun. Sun protection forms the foundation of every anti-aging skin-care plan. One of the biggest agers to you skin is UV rays, and an SPF is something you should be using every day, not just when you're on holiday. Using one that is broad-spectrum and contains an SPF of at least 30 and make sure not to forget your neck, chest, and the backs of your hands. Be sure to seek shade and whenever possible wear a hat and long sleeves. Wear sunglasses to help reduce squinting and minimizing fine lines around your eyes.
5. Use Moisturizer and Serum
If you’re not already incorporating an anti-aging regime, now’s the time. Although we all know that skin changes as we age, it’s not always an easy thing to accept. In your 40’s, the natural life cycle of skin begins to slow down. You're also losing more collagen and elasticity and your skin retains less moisture. Because it doesn't reflect light evenly, your complexion is losing some of its glow. Those great sun vacations you took in your teens are now showing up on your face and you're beginning to see cumulative sun damage in the form of blotchiness and red spots.
You'll need at least two anti-aging products in your 40s: Moisturizer that contains moisture-drawing hyaluronic acid and serums that contain antioxidants and are brimming with peptides.
Moisturizer: Treat dryness with a rich moisturizing cream that contains hyaluronic acid. Hyaluronic acid is a hydrator that binds water and keeps skin looking dewy and young.
Serums: Try adding an antioxidant-rich serum into your daily routine for an extra shot of hydration and to help fight free radicals. Look for serums rich in collagen-boosting peptides, which act as building blocks for new collagen formation and stimulate fibroblast activity. Look for ingredients with high-quality vitamin C which will help with the collagen-formation process and can help fade dark spots.
6. Eat Foods Rich in Vitamin C and E
You know that adage “beauty starts from within”? Well, in the case of your skin it’s 100% true. What we eat has a direct effect on our skin and eating a healthy diet full of good fats, antioxidants, vitamin C, collagen, and amino acids can mean the difference between a fresh, glowing complexion and a tired, puffy, wrinkled one.
Food's rich in vitamin C and E have antioxidants that help prevent free radicals from damaging cells and improve the elasticity and suppleness of your skin. Foods such as fish, nuts, seeds, dairy products, green leafy vegetables, citrus fruits are rich in these vitamins.
Fatty fish such as salmon, mackerel, and herring are excellent foods for healthy skin. They’re rich sources of omega-3 fatty acids, which are important for maintaining skin health. The omega-3 fats in fish reduce inflammation, which can cause redness and acne. Fatty fish is also a source of vitamin E, one of the most important antioxidants for your skin. Getting enough vitamin E is essential for helping protect your skin against damage from free radicals and inflammation.
Avocados are high in healthy fats, there's a reason why avocados are a popular ingredient for face masks. These fats benefit many functions in your body, including the health of your skin and getting enough of these fats is essential to help keep skin flexible and moisturized.
Among other vitamins, avocados are also a good sources of vitamins E and C which are two of the many antioxidants that help protect cells from damage.
Vitamin E is an important antioxidant that helps protect your skin from oxidative damage. Vitamin C is also essential for healthy skin. Your skin needs it to create collagen, which is the main structural protein that keeps your skin strong and healthy. Vitamin C is also an antioxidant that helps protect your skin from oxidative damage caused by the sun and the environment, which can lead to signs of aging. Because avocados are rich in healthy fats, it helps your body absorb these vitamins.
Walnuts have many characteristics that make them an excellent food for healthy skin. They’re a good source of essential fatty acids, which are fats your body cannot make itself. Walnuts amp up collagen production because they are high in omega-3 fatty acids. Collagen is a protein that helps improve the skin's elasticity, preventing sagging and ultimately leaving your skin plump and youthful. In fact, they’re richer than most other nuts in both omega-3 acids.
Spinach This leafy green is rich in vitamin A, which is an antioxidant and promotes healthy skin cell turnover. Really, any dark leafy green is an all-around nutritional powerhouse. You’ll get a virtual alphabet of vitamins from them, including lots of the antioxidants that are skin-friendly. Vitamin A is also a big ingredient found in Retin-A; a medication used to treat acne.
Broccoli is full of many vitamins and minerals important for skin health. It contains a myriad of good-for-your-skin vitamins, including A, C, which is a fantastic antioxidant that also supports collagen production. There's also vitamin K in broccoli, which speeds up the healing of bruises and may even help improve dark undereye circles. It also contains lutein, a carotenoid that works like beta carotene. Lutein helps protect your skin from oxidative damage, which can cause your skin to become dry and wrinkled.
From fighting free radicals to smoothing fine lines, there are plenty of options in regular grocery stores.
7. Consider Taking Daily Supplements
In addition to taking in the appropriate amount of 8 glasses of water each day, you should also consider taking daily supplements that may promote healthy and hydrated cells. Collagen and Vitamin E specifically help the skin look healthy and rejuvenated.
Collagen is a popular dietary supplement that may help prevent skin aging by boosting collagen levels in your skin. Collagen supplements may seem like an obvious addition to your anti-aging process, but it’s worth repeating because collagen is the most abundant protein in the body. There are two amino acids in the protein collagen, Proline and Glycine that are essential for the formation and repair of joints, bones, muscles, and tendons. It gives structure to your skin, bones, muscles and connective tissue and is promoted as a fountain of youth for its potential to reduce the appearance of aging skin and improving the elasticity.
Collagen plays a major role in the structure and elasticity of our skin, aka our youthful skin’s bouncy quality. Many assume that if they eat enough animal protein, they will get collagen in their bodies. The truth is that even if you were eating a lot of meat, it would be very hard for your body to synthesize protein and build it into collagen.
To build collagen your body requires a lot more to link all the amino chains together. As you age, collagen production slows, leading to collagen loss in the skin that accelerates signs of aging like wrinkles. Many types of collagen supplements are on the market, including powders and capsules.
Bone Broth Because bone broth contains a large amount of collagen and gelatin, consuming broth may help support your body's ability to create collagen and help keep skin strong and youthful for longer. Consuming Bone Broth provides many amazing health benefits, including increased absorption of nutrients.
Omega-3's One of the most significant nutrients for healthy skin is omega 3 fatty acids. They are among the few nutrients that have numerous health and beauty benefits from fighting depression to improving eye health and improving cardiovascular health.
Omega-3 fatty acids are essential nutrients found in certain foods and are abundant in foods like walnuts, seafood, fatty fish, flax seeds, and walnuts. Omega-3's can serve to regulate the skin's oil production, improve balanced hydration, subdue breakouts and minimize signs of aging. Omega-3's can also help soften rough, dry skin and have a soothing effect on irritation and dermatitis.
Your body can’t manufacture Omega-3, so you have to add them to your diet through Omega 3 rich foods or get your omega-3’s through fish oil supplements.
8. Get Consistent Massages
By your 40s, your lymphatic system will be starting to slow. One of the top anti-aging things you can do for your body in your 40’s is getting a regular massage. Getting a good massage decreases lymphatic buildup and increases oxygen with vibrant blood flow to your skin cells. As the lymphatic system is responsible for getting rid of toxins, you may notice more puffiness around your eyes and cheeks. So try massaging your skin each night, as the last step before you snooze.
9. Exercise Consistently
It is also important also to stay consistent with exercise and include as much variety as possible in your workouts. Just like our faces, other parts of our body begin to fall as we age. Starting in our 30s, the body loses muscle mass and tone, causing overall less firmness. Whether it is jogging, running, cycling, power walking or yoga, it is a great way to burn calories and improve both mental and physical health. Also, exercise helps lessen stress and raise your energy, mood, and sleep quality.
10. Calm Your Mind
Try meditation or deep breathing techniques to calm your mind. Meditation trains us to be less in our head and more aware of the present moment. The mind’s tendency to get caught up in thoughts is perhaps strongest at bedtime, when we suddenly stop and be still. Meditation for sleep is a specific, guided experience that offers a natural sleep aid all on its own, allowing us to let go of everything that has happened in the day.
Key Takeaway
Key things to remember are to never skip sun protection, avoid processed foods, eat healthy fats and drink plenty of water. Always seek the advice of your physician or qualified health provider prior to starting any new diet or treatment.
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