Good and healthy skin is a combination of a good diet, good health, adequate sleep, and a healthy lifestyle. (Source: Getty/Thinkstock Images)
Healthy skin is a combination of a proper diet, good health, adequate sleep and a balanced lifestyle. Yes, there are thousands of products that guarantee youthful skin but as they say — you are what you eat. A healthy lifestyle can never be replaced with a lotion or makeup and to attain that radiant glow, you have to have stick to a sustainable routine.
The ageing of skin happens due to two reasons, clinical and biological, which is a slow distinct process. Clinical ageing equally affects the skin as it does other internal organs. “The second is extrinsic skin ageing, which we view as aged skin and is the result of external factors and environmental influence, mainly chronic sun exposure and ultraviolet (UV) irradiation but also smoking, pollution, sleep deprivation and poor nutrition,” explained a study ‘Discovering the link between nutrition and skin ageing‘ published in Dermatoendocrinol, National Center for Biotechnology Information.
Here are some habits that can take you a long way:
* A diet rich in vitamin C is strongly advisable. You can get your dose of vitamin C from oranges, amla, broccoli, cantaloupe, cauliflower, kale, kiwi, red, green or yellow pepper, sweet potato, strawberries and tomatoes.
* Additionally, incorporating food rich in vitamin A like, carrots, mango, papaya, dry fruits like dates, walnuts, green leafy vegetables such as spinach, fenugreek are recommended.
* Drinking adequate amounts of water is the secret to healthy skin. It plays an important role in flushing out toxins from your body and helps in keeping the body hydrated.
* Apart from that, getting adequate sleep is essential for good skin health. When a person is sleep-deprived, the body produces more of the stress hormone called cortisol. Thus, elevated levels of cortisol can lead to increased stress and inflammation in the body, affecting the skin’s quality.
* Lastly, one should exercise on a regular basis. Exercising increases the blood flow, which helps in nourishing skin cells and keeping them vital. The blood then carries oxygen and nutrients to working cells throughout the body, including the skin. In addition to that, blood flow also helps in eliminating waste products from the working cells.