Every year, people around the world spend over $500 billion on beauty products. We find ourselves living during a time where appearance seems to be everything. The advertisers and marketers want to convince you that their expensive products will make you look younger, but I say save your money. The key to looking younger longer is a healthy lifestyle, not high-end products, and any focusing on your diet and exercise levels will help slow the aging process.
How Diet and Exercise Affects the Aging Process
Having a good diet means two things, eating healthy and eliminating activities like smoking and drinking. When it comes to eating healthy, the best thing we can do to slow the aging process is to eliminate refined sugars, greasy/fatty foods, and processed foods, in favor of fresh alternatives (Cosgrove, 2007). Processed foods are some of the most inexpensive food products, but they also tend to be full of refined sugars, fats, and other additives. Depending on one’s budget, it can be extremely difficult to maintain a healthy diet, but one strategy might be to keep an eye on sales or other discounts.
Smoking and drinking alcohol is also very destructive. Breaking these two habits can be hard, because the body becomes addicted to sugar, fats, cigarettes, alcohol, and more. The best approach might involve trying to curb the habit of smoking or drinking alcohol before focusing on food intake because of how much money a frequent smoker or drinker would save.
When we find ourselves eating unhealthy, exercising can help flush toxins out of our body through sweat. Exercising increases our body temperature and it causes the body to burn energy and fat. It also leads to more tight and toned skin by eliminating fat, and that helps to keep skin from losing its natural elasticity. However, it is important to avoid extremely strenuous exercises because that can negatively affect the entire body (Dunn, 2013).
In addition to a healthy diet and exercise, it is important to try and get a good sleep, reducing stress levels and keeping your skin hydrated. Sleep is the time when your body repairs itself, so it is important to have a solid nighttime routine. Stress leads to our body releasing hormones that trigger the early onset of wrinkles and skin dullness. Everyone will have varying levels of stress in their lives, but a good philosophy to counter stress is “working toward a better tomorrow” (Dunn, 2013). Skin produces natural oils and too much washing of the faces will lead to dry skin. Moisturizers are some of the cheapest skin care products available, yet dermatologists swear by them.
Better Late Than Never
Whether you are entering your twenties or getting closer to retirement, you will see a difference by switching to a healthier lifestyle. These simple switches will have positive health impacts that extend beyond healthy skin, they will save you a lot of money that you will be able to allocate elsewhere. While advertisers are experts at influencing behaviors, condition yourself to see Derek Zoolander’s “Aqua Vitae” beauty commercial in Zoolander 2 whenever someone tries selling you eternal youth.
