In this advanced age of technology, self awareness, and many with disposable income for marketers to target, we can barely turn on the TV, browse online or look in a print publication without being reminded of what we can do to prevent facial aging. So much attention has been focused on it that the actual reasons behind an aging face get lost in the shuffle.
There are many underlying reasons, aside from simply the breakdown of cells and tissue that begin to give our faces the perceived “older” look that so many of us dread. The good news is that there are also many things we can do to help slow down and negate these processes over time.
Our bones actually “wear” away
The underlying bones in our face actually begin to break down and wear away with age. This can mean our cheek bones become less defined, and many of the other bones also wear down that are supporting the structure that creates the “canvass” of our skin that stretches over our face, much like the canvass that stretches over a frame.
One thing you can do to help keep all of the bones in your body strong is to make sure you are getting enough calcium through diet (not through supplementation, which can be limited in effectiveness and in some cases even counterproductive to your overall health), and also get plenty of vitamin D. These two nutrients of course work hand in hand to support bone health and help to prevent degeneration of this hard substance that supports the entire weight of our body, and also happens to play a large part in the integrity of facial structure.
Our facial muscles begin to atrophy
Another closely related issue to bone integrity is the strength and resilience of the facial muscles which support the skin and fatty layers immediately below the skin. Just as with the muscles supporting and defining the rest of our body, we enjoy a lot of natural tone with youth.
This tone and firmness begins to wane with age, and just as we would work out to keep the tone, definition and functionality of our other muscles, we must also “work out” our facial muscles. There are some great exercises you can find free instructions to online that will help with all of the most common facial age-related complaints. These include exercises for nasolabial folds, forehead and laugh lines, crows feet, and even the lips.
Exercising these facial muscles helps to keep the underlying foundation strong, firm and lifted. This will not only help with the deep lines and depressions that form, but it will also help keep the skin taut and lifted, and will help fight the inevitable sag that comes with time and gravity.
We stop making as much collagen
Our bodies make a ton of collagen up until about the age of 25. It starts to drop off right around then, sometimes earlier and sometimes later for other people. This is about the time that many people might start to notice some visible signs of aging like fine lines and wrinkles that start to not go away when the expression that formed them is no longer being made.
Men experience a decline in testosterone, which aids in male collagen production. Likewise, women experience a decline in estrogen which aids in female collagen production. There are other forces at work at well, but suffice it to say that we experience sharp declines in this important joint lubricant and skin resilience material.
Cell damage caused by poor diet, excessive UV exposure, smoking and other toxic habits and exposure are also big reasons behind collagen decline. Vitamin C is a vital nutrient to get every day since it is a precursor to collagen production, and getting plenty of plant based estrogen-boosting nutrients like raw nuts, seeds and greens will also help preserve this precious material.
Sun damage
Sun damage is another huge “tell tale” sign of age on a person’s face. Sun damage can be an insidious agent of damage over the years. It starts to occur to our skin at a very young age before we are even aware of the importance of keeping our sun exposure to healthy levels where we do not burn.
Sun spots, liver spots, discolorations, melasma, and an overall uneven skin tone are all results of excessive UV exposure. Sun exposure is an important part of our health. We definitely need it to support therapeutic vitamin D levels in our blood to prevent cancer, boost immunity and defend against cell mutation.
However, keeping our faces protected is important since it gets the most exposure of any other body part. It is very easy to unintentionally overexpose our face to the sun, and this really has a cumulative effect on the way our skin looks over the years.
Danna Norek owns AuraSensory.com, which offers popular natural skin and hair care products that are highly effective including a top selling Vitamin C Ester and MSM (a natural skin softening and penetrating cushioning agent) Face Cream and Hyaluronic Acid Serum.
Sources for this article include:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-booth/who-took-my-collagen-and_b_209969.html
