What Creates Healthy Skin?

healthy products are the individuals or small companies prevalent online who may not have enough data or experience to formulate safe and effective products.

While there are regulations limiting the amount of harmful ingredients in any one product, women, on average, put on more than 500 chemicals every day—from soaps to creams to lotions to fragrances to powders to makeup to sparkles and more. Consider when one product contains the legal amount of harmful chemicals, and we put on another product that has its share of harmful ingredients, and we continue to layer until we’ve overstepped the borders of health. We are doing ourselves a grave disservice.

Buyer beware! Read labels and empower yourself by knowing your ingredients and understanding not only what they do or don’t do but also how they are made. Find out what the parent chemicals were used to make the components. Natural ingredients versus “natural on the label, but not really” make the difference between so-so and knock-out skin.

There are many products on the market touted as collagen replenishers and collagen enhancers that cost $55, $75, $150, or more per tiny jar. The truth is that collagen molecules are so large that there is no way for collagen in these products to enter the skin and make any difference whatsoever. Being uneducated about the makeup of the skin (no pun intended), we believe the hype and fork out the money, hoping for plumper, more youthful-looking skin.

It’s easy these days to google the ingredients in your bath and beauty products, find out what they are, and if they work as advertised. Such research can be eye-opening and help you be aware of what is put on the skin, whether that skin belongs to you, your family, friends, and/or customers.

Have you ever seen a person whose skin glowed? When asked how they achieved this feat, often they’ll say, “Meh, I just don’t stress about things the way I used to.” A worthy goal!

Contentment is the best makeup. Imagine how amazing your skin might look if you adopted the same philosophy.

Take notice of how and with whom you spend your time, energy, and thoughts. Do you spend that precious physical and emotional energy on things outside your control? The good news is that we have choices; we can spend our energy on the things we deem most important, and we can put the rest aside. Understanding this concept leads to a sense of freedom that accompanies a feeling of relief. We turn our focus on what’s in our hula hoop, instead of the hoops of others.

Dealing with life’s hazards can be hard, but it’s worth the effort. Therapy offers us the opportunity to sort things out and come to terms with past and present trauma. When we remove the mental and emotional weight that’s holding us down, that freedom can lift years from our skin. It’s never too late to do the work to unburden our hearts and minds!

When we’re talking about stress relief, a personalized approach is most effective.

1. Give up skin wasters. Smoking, vaping, and alcohol in excess wreak havoc, adding years to the skin, directly affecting gut bacteria in a negative way as well as the ability of the liver and kidneys to filter out toxins. Consider working on giving up these activities. Oxygen will return to skin cells, and collagen and elastin renewal can be vastly improved. While the skin may never return to its pre-smoking and -alcohol state, there will be much improvement.

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2. Breathe. Take time to stop, breathe, and become aware of your body. Focus on inhaling deeply and slowly exhaling. You may not be aware of it, but your heart slows down upon exhaling, then speeds up when inhaling. This is a healthy exchange between your heart and your head. Focusing on your breathing is a proven way to manage stress, avoid burnout, and calm the rise of anxiety and panic.

3. Do what you love. There is truth in the concept of doing what you love. Start out by setting a timer for 10 minutes and writing down what makes you relaxed and happy. Pick one thing every day and take the time to do it. Notice how it changes — over time — your overall outlook, your stress levels, and your world. Your new self-care list will be as personal and individual as you.

4. Get plenty of sleep. Proper sleep allows the body to relax, metabolize, repair, maintain. Keeping to our natural circadian rhythm allows for a calmer countenance and healthier outlook. Let your bedroom be a place for sleep and play only.

5. Create healthy friendships. Social isolation increases psychological and physiological damage caused by stress. Friends are people to laugh with, play with, support, and love. Treat them well and play fair. Don’t worry about feeling awkward when meeting a potential new friend. We all are, if we would only admit it! Some of us just hide it a bit better.

6. Practice healthy boundaries with kindness. Do you live your life to please others? We often seek to please others out of fear, worry, expectation, or as an attempt

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The Skin is Our Biggest Organ

From birth through old age, our skin protects us from our environment. Without much thought, we bake our skin in the sun and soak it in water. We peel our skin when it gets burned, we shave and pull out hairs with sugar or wax.

We color on it with pens when young, then tattoo it when we get older. We put makeup on our skin, pull and push on it, put all manner of products on it.

Our skin gets cut and bruised time and time again. Some stretch their skin through childbearing and simply resting hands on the chin or face time and again.

The beautiful part is that our skin continues to heal, protect, and deliver on its promise to keep the good stuff in and the bad stuff out.

to prove how wonderful we are. Turn that to prove how wonderful we are. Turn that around. Let others prove themselves to you. If they don’t see the amazing person you are without you having to give give give, then give them up. Another way to practice healthy boundaries is to acknowledge how often you criticize yourself. Begin a practice of giving yourself the same kindness and consideration that you would give to another person. As you relinquish giving the power of your self-worth to others, your whole countenance will change. You’ll hold your head higher, Queen, and your skin will improve with new vitality as you drop things and people who do not serve your best interests. Your skin-rejuvenating bank account fi lls to the brim.

7. Eat well and use your body. The antioxidants and nutrients in healthy food counterbalance the infl ammatory proteins the body produces under stress. Exercise helps to relieve stress and strengthen

the body’s systems. Start small and work your way up. Forest bathing is a thing! Go outside, walk with your feet on the ground, breathe in oxygen, and be healed.

8. Drink half your body weight in ounces of water every day. So what if you have to pee more? Peeing is the body’s way of getting rid of excess calcium, toxins, and metabolites from the cells. That’s a good thing. A person who weighs 140 pounds would drink 70 ounces of water per day. Coffee, tea, energy drinks, alcoholic drinks, and the like are diuretic and will pull more water out of the body than the volume taken in. That leads to dehydration, which is then refl ected in the skin. When I say drink water, I mean water. If you need a bit of fl avor, add a teaspoon of any citrus juice or a slice of strawberry. Raspberries add wonderful taste as do ginger and cucumber. Read the labels on fl avored waters to exclude those with added sugar. Taking sips over the course of the day can alleviate the pressure of thinking that you need to drink a lot of water at once.

9. Turn off technology. It is a sorry fact that many people are addicted to technology. Contrary to popular opinion, it’s not benefi cial to binge your favorite shows, check your email, post on social media, and text at the same time. We don’t need to check Facebook or Instagram 25, 50, or 150 times a day to see how many “likes” we’re getting. Find ways to give yourself validation instead of seeking it online from people you may or may not know. Most important, don’t engage in social media arguments. Life is too short, my friends. Take the games off your devices. Look at the world — it’s a beautiful place! 10. Start or end each day by writing down fi ve things for which you are grateful. This literally changes your brain by focusing on what is good.

Gratitude feeds good. When we practice gratitude, pathways in the brain are retrained and rerouted to the positive instead of the negative. Imagine how your outlook will change as you allow yourself to see the many blessings in your life.

The Anatomy of Skin

• The outer layer that we see, called the epidermis, is made of translucent cells that produce keratin, a protein that is protective against environmental damage and helps retain water.

Melanin, produced in epidermis cells, gives the skin its color. • The middle layer, the dermis, contributes the skin’s strength and texture with the help of the proteins elastin and collagen. These two proteins break down with age, leading to wrinkles and sagging skin. The dermis also contains nerves, blood vessels, hair follicles, and sweat glands.

We feel pain when the skin is irritated or damaged because of the nerves and receptors in the dermis. • The inner layer of skin is the subcutaneous layer, made of fat and collagen cells. This layer is the “shock absorber.” It protects internal organs from injury and helps to retain heat, always striving to reach homeostasis.

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