WHY IS MY FACE SKIN AGING SO FAST?

Simply our face is exposed to the environment more than our body, so it ages fast. But that’s not the only reason. Face skin is comparatively thinner, and has more complexities and organs than any other area. The muscles are continuously twitching, as we speak, show normal emotions, smile, eat, furrow eyebrows, or crease our forehead, eventually with time all these create permanent marks on our face. And simply it increases over time no matter how good your skin elasticity is.

Skin aging is a complex, slow, biological, natural process that affects all the layers of the skin from inner to outermost. It changes the dermis layer the most. Let’s see how healthy, young skin should be.

• The skin has three layers, The epidermis or the outer layer, the dermis (the middle layer), and the hypodermis, or the innermost layer.
• The epidermis layer protects not only both of the skin layers underneath but the whole body as a single unit. The Epidermis layer needs proper lipid barrier and hydration.
• The dermis layer has blood vessels, sebaceous glands, nerve fibers, sudoriferous glands, and ECM. The ECM is an extracellular matrix that provides structure to the skin. The main components that give structure to the skin are collagen, elastin, fibronectin, etc.
• The deepest layer of the skin Hypodermis consists of adipose (fatty) tissue, lymph, and nerves. Adipose tissue is fats with immune cells. This is also very important because adipose tissue protects internal organs from minimal harm. It also helps to keep skin tight in place.

Intrinsic Reasons for Skin Aging

These are related to the changes in the skin with time or aging no matter how much you take care of your skin or how much unpolluted your environment is. Genetics plays a huge role in intrinsic skin aging. DNAs are on top of everything. With time epigenetic changes affect DNA altering chromatin structure, transparent stability, etc.

As we age, our DNA undergoes many alterations that affect our cells. A recent study found that some human cells did not match the chronological age of the individual they belonged to. This is because a specific epigenetic modification called DNA methylation may not accurately reflect a person’s age.

In an easy explanation, when we age, the production and amount of nutritional components in our cells decrease. The cellular multiplication decreases time by time with aging making the skin thinner which impacts visually, increasing lines and wrinkles. Also, oil glands reduce their activity. So, the skin naturally looks duller, rougher, and less vibrant. Oil and water loss in the cells make the skin lose its elasticity as a person ages. On average, the skin loses about 6 percent of its thickness every 10 years. This means that someone who is 50 years old will have lost approximately 30 percent of their initial skin volume. This impacts both the epidermis and dermis layers of skin.

Extrinsic Reasons for Skin Aging

With various deficiencies within tissues, the added reasons are UV ray exposure, diets, sleeping habits, and lifestyle, hormonal imbalance, improper care, stress, and overall physical and mental health effects a lot.

1. Sun on Skin & Eyes!!

Okay, without sunscreen I cannot even write a blog about skin. UV ray is the main reason your skin shows aging if you have not known yet. UVB causes tanning or burning because it affects the top layer of the skin. But UVB on the other hand can affect your dermis layer, causing premature aging, wrinkles, and in some cases even cancer! When it comes to skin cancer, UVB and UVC also contribute their parts. But most importantly 95% of the the UV rays are UV-A rays. When buying sunscreen make sure that has UVA filters because even in this modern science era there are sunscreens that only contain UVB filters, and for me, they are useless like 95% 😒 as a sunscreen!

Zinc oxide and titanium dioxide are broad-spectrum filters that will protect your skin from both UVA and UVB rays. Then there is Avobenzone which absorbs UVA rays and is the only filter that gives proper protection against UVA rays.

2. Smoking and Consuming Alcohol

Tobacco is the worst of all. Many many people die each year just for smoking around the world every day! Smoking can change the skin structure and pigmentation. That is why those who smoke their lips tend to be more black. Smoking causes wrinkles faster in the outer lip area. Not only that it may cause infection.

Alcohol on the other hand can cause an increase in kerantinocyte cells that produce keratine leading to damage to the skin barrier, causing hard bumps. Alcohol also dehydrates the body and skin by losing fluid. That leads to wrinkles on the skin more quickly and you will look more dull. As it also damages the skin barrier, your skin may feel itchy, and you may face rosacea. Not to mention liver disease in my skin aging blog, but dear, you are just not wasting your liver but that hampers your lipid composition and directs to unhealthy weight gain.

3. Careless Diet

Modern science has proven that an imbalanced diet is an important reason behind skin aging. When we are exposed to air which is always, we oxides like any other material. Our skin oxidized. So what do we need to consume? Anti-oxidants.

• Free radicals in our body accelerate aging by oxidative stress. Free radicals are highly reactive molecules often causing damage when trying to stabilize themselves by reacting with other molecules. Foods containing vitamins C, and E, beta carotene, berries, nuts, seeds, vegetables, and citrus fruits are rich in antioxidants that help to fight free radicals.
• Eat fish, and seeds like flaxseeds that contain omega-3 fatty acid that improves skin condition by their anti-inflammatory properties and maintaining skin barrier.
• Next is Collagen. Very trendy right now! Well, you will be happy to know that the food and fruits I mentioned before like citrus fruits, which contain vitamin C, and berries like strawberry, aid in collagen production.
• Stay hydrated. Shamelessly writing this as I drink hardly one liter of water per day. I know! I am trying, or not. I am lazy, too lazy to drink water. Why I am still alive anyway? But, but, if you want to keep your skin hydrated from the inside, skincare can’t do much (As it affects the outer layers most), you have to drink at least 2 liters. Also the more dry is your skin is more prone to wrinkles. Hydration helps to maintain elasticity and also keeps your skin plump so less visibility of wrinkles. Suppose a balloon is not full of anything air or water. You can see many lines on the rubber. But when it’s tight with air (water for our skin) it plumps, and shows very less lines, not only that, but the surface becomes so smooth that it shines! It’s not like there were problems with the surface of that balloon but lines and dullness were suppressing the real sparkle.

4. Consuming Sugar and High Fat Diet?

These lead to diabetes, fatty liver, and skin aging, exactly what we are here. Because I know, how looks matter sometimes more than our internal health. Let’s accept most of us don’t even care about our late sleep until our dark circle says hi! Sugar means no nutritional benefit with added calories that can cause obesity and diabetes. Not to mention the worst part of sugar is it promotes cancer cells! Sugar is also a threat to your heart. On the other hand high fat diets increase oxidative stress that causes inflammatory damage to your skin¹.

5. Unhygienic?

When you’re not bathing or cleaning yourself properly simply dead skin cells build up, and skin bacteria build up because skin sweats, produce oils, comes into contact with environmental pollution less or more, in any condition. Over time these bacteria cause inflammation, damage the skin, and accelerate the aging process. Not cleaning your skin properly can lead to skin diseases like eczema, which will also accelerate aging. Dirty skin hampers the skin’s natural pH level, if your skin becomes acidic over time, it will damage it selves eventually.

6. Makeup For a Long Period and Often

The main problem with makeup is the ingredients. We are very careful with what we buy for our skin when it comes to skincare, but do we even know what’s in our face powder, foundation, eye shadow, or lipstick? Primer protects your skin from those horrific unknown ingredients but that means it’s also blocking your skin from breath. This can lead to whiteheads, blackheads, etc.

Also, makeup becomes dry on your skin after a few hours, so it absorbs hydration from your skin making you more dehydrated than normal. Not only that, many products contain alcohol that dries the skin. So my advice is to choose light products, apply light makeup when possible, and when possible give your makeup and your face rest. Well, I don’t care about your makeup but your skin for sure, give it a rest when makeup is not necessary. We all are unrefinedly beautiful and that’s okay to show. Know when you want to show your markup art and care for your skin. Life needs balance 😅

7. No Basic Skin Care!

You do not need 10 steps but, without minimal skincare, your skin will age very fast. Why? It’s simple because a basic, primary skincare contains three steps.

Cleanse (stay hygienic). Hydrate (Don’t dehydrate your skin not internally not externally!). Protect (USE SUNSCREEN!!). *And, I am not gonna explain, why and how these effects your skin, you know already*

8. Taking So Much Stress?

Taking too much stress can hamper your hormonal balance, which will affect the oil production of your skin. Very oily skin is prone to acne and dry skin is prone to eczema and causes wrinkles fast. Stress hormones can reduce the lipid layer, ceramide production will directly impact your skin barrier. Hormonal imbalance not just will affect your skin but health, and both are co-dependent. Your due work and goals will be achieved one day, stay happy and heal. After all, staying happy is the terminus!

9. Improper Sleeping

Last but not least, SLEEP.

On average, one sleep cycle is 90-120 minutes. An adult needs 7-9 of sleep each night. That means 4-6 sleep cycles each night.

The sleep cycle has four stages. First, Non-Rapid Eye Movement consists of NERM Stages 1,2, and 3. The second one is Rapid Eye Movement (REM).

During stage 1 sleep:
Your brain slows down.
Your heartbeat, your eye movements, and your breathing slow with it.
Your body relaxes, and your muscles may twitch.

During stage 2 sleep:
You become less aware of your surroundings.
Your body temperature drops.
Your eye movements stop.
Your breathing and heart rate become more regular.

During NREM stage 3 sleep:
Your muscles are completely relaxed.
Your blood pressure drops and breathing slows.
You progress into your deepest sleep.

Stage 4 REM sleep:
Your brain lights up with activity.
Your body is relaxed and immobilized.
Your breathing is faster and irregular.
Your eyes move rapidly.
You dream.

*Information has been taken from here*

Not only that, the quality of sleep also matters, because sleep stages are altered when you feel depressed, have injuries, or anxiety, or in medication. Sleeping less than 6 hours even for one day shows a surprising drop in immunity, and heart health even for cancer cells. If one day of sleeping affects your health internally that much think how it will affect your skin, because skin is the reflection of your physical health. Better quality of sleep equals better immunity equals better skin.

Women tend to sleep more than men which is normal. Also, most women face difficulty falling asleep than men.