6 Ways to Have Better Skin Naturally
Your skin is a reflection of your insides. What’s going on internally can reveal itself on your skin. Think about your teenage acne and eating too many potato chips and how it gave you a major breakout just before prom. Or consider how you now have dark circles under your eyes. You might think that they are from just being tired and stressed, but your skin is affected by more than how many hours your head hits the pillow. If you want to have better skin, think about all the different ways you can nourish your insides to make your outside reflect healthy, vibrant skin.
Use Sunscreen
Sunscreen helps protect your skin from harmful sun radiation. These rays look and feel good and are essential for creating vitamin D in your body. But too much of a good thing can be harmful. Without skin protection, you might find yourself with painful sunburns that over time can lead to damaged cells that go rogue and turn into cancerous cells. It’s important to use sunscreen if you know you’ll be outside for more than 15 minutes.
Drink Water
Did you know that drinking enough water not only gives you more energy and helps you digest food more easily, but it also helps hydrate your skin from the inside out? Drinking around half an ounce of water per pound of bodyweight is a good way to figure out your water needs. Of course, if you don’t get too much activity and you live in a humid climate, you’ll need less than someone in a dry climate who exercises a lot.
Eat Your Vegetables (and Fruit)
The essential nutrients in vegetables and fruit can help give you the kind of skin you dream of. Antioxidants help remove the free radicals formed by sun damage and other toxins in your body. You’ll learn that nutrient-rich foods are fantastic for not only your gut and immune health, but also for your skin health. You can even use some plants in salves, lotions, and on the skin to help with certain conditions. Think about cucumbers on the eyes in spas. It’s not just because they are cool against the skin. They actually contain compounds that help to reduce inflammation and heal the thin skin around the eyes.
Add in Collagen
Collagen is all the rage right now in the beauty industry and it’s no surprise. The benefits of collagen are innumerable. Collagen is a protein found in all animals. It’s contained within connective tissue, joints, discs, and more. We get collagen by eating parts of animals that still contain these tissues or by eating supplements made of them.
As you age, your body produces less collagen, and this causes the skin to lose elasticity and start to sag. This is one of the many reasons that older women choose to get plastic surgery on their faces. They want to remove the sag to keep their skin looking more youthful. Dietary collagen helps slow this process by adding back the necessary proteins to improve elasticity and reduce the look of fine lines and wrinkles.
Supplement with Vitamin C
Vitamin C is a powerful antioxidant. It helps wounds heal more quickly. Vitamin C reduces the appearance of under-eye circles. People have taken vitamin c supplements for a long time to help them overcome sickness and now some anti-cancer benefits are being revealed as well. When it comes to skin, you can add vitamin c in a couple of ways. The first is by eating vitamin c rich foods like oranges, strawberries, pineapple, and mango or supplementing with vitamin c powders. Additionally, you can use a vitamin c moisturizer on the outside of your skin to get all the great benefits from this nutrient.
Use Toxin-Free Moisturizers
Many moisturizers nowadays contain a lot of chemicals. While there may be some great ingredients in them, toxic stabilizers, fragrances, and preservatives can cause more harm than good for your skin. Look for products with ingredients that read more like a food list than a chemistry experiment for the best results on your skin. You may need to try out a few products to find what works best to hydrate your skin without making it feel oily and reduce the redness and inflammation on your skin.
