Remember when you're a fearless, frolicking first grader? You weren't searching for "anti-aging cream," for sure. No, the most difficult decision you had to make was which color marker to use.
Fast-forward. You're now juggling deadlines and meetings during the day and chores and household duties at night. The good news is that early gray hair is primarily determined by your genetic makeup, rather than your lifestyle choices. The bad news is that chronic stress and exhaustion have been linked to crow's feet, frown lines, and under eye wrinkles.
Wrinkles are an unavoidable natural result of the aging process. As people age, their skin thins, becomes drier, and loses elasticity, making them less able to protect themselves from damage. This causes wrinkles, creases, and lines to appear on the skin.
Facial expressions such as smiling, frowning, or squinting cause fine lines and wrinkles to form at a young age. As a person ages, these lines become deeper.
Skin springs back when a person is young. As they age, their skin loses flexibility and becomes more difficult to spring back, resulting in permanent grooves.
What Exactly is Stress?
Stress affects your body both mentally and physically, whether you realize it or not. While the precise definition of stress has been debated over the years, it is essentially our bodies' flight-or-fight response, which is triggered when our sympathetic nervous system detects a threat.
Whether the threat is a looming deadline at work or a bear in the woods, your body reacts by producing increased amounts of the chemicals cortisol, adrenaline, and noradrenaline. When you are stressed, your heart rate may increase, you may sweat more, and you may become more alert, all of which may help you get out of a bad situation.
How Chronic Stress Could Cause Wrinkles
Research has shown the impact of stress can cause premature wrinkles and constantly being stressed certainly doesn’t help your anti-aging routine.
Cortisol, the primary stress hormone, has been known to break down the collagen in your skin, among other things. The more stressed you are, the more cortisol your body produces. Eventually, your skin cells won’t be able to naturally rebuild the elastin and collagen as well as they used to.
What are Stress Wrinkles
When you are chronically stressed, either mentally or physically, your body frequently goes into fight or flight mode. And, if you are constantly on high alert, your body will go into overdrive to keep you going by producing an excess of cortisol, adrenaline, and noradrenaline. While all of these things are wonderful and certainly serve a purpose, if you are constantly in fight or flight mode, these chemicals can wear you down and prevent you from doing things like relaxing, repairing, and rebuilding. This causes the breakdown of two things in the skin: collagen and telomeres.
"Collagen is like the scaffolding of the skin that prevents fine lines and wrinkles," Bowe explained.
What Causes Wrinkles
Every year after the age of 20, your skin produces 1% less collagen. Elastin production declines as you age, and the sweat and oil glands in your skin lose some of their ability to function.
When and how many wrinkles appear is also determined by genetics. Gonzalez, for example, claims to have seen patients in their twenties with wrinkles and people in their forties with barely any wrinkles.
There are a few lifestyle factors that can accelerate wrinkles, including:
UV rays can hasten skin wrinkling by breaking down collagen.
Cigarette nicotine can reduce blood flow to the skin, preventing it from receiving the nutrients it requires to stay healthy. The chemicals in cigarettes, of which there are over 4,000, can also harm the skin's collagen and elastin.
Alcoholism deprives the skin of vitamin A, causing wrinkles to worsen. Foods high in refined sugar, such as baked goods and candy, as well as trans or saturated fats, such as red meat and dairy, can all contribute to skin aging.
How Stress Affects Our Skin
Little sleep, an unhealthy diet, dry skin, and a lack of exercise can all have a negative impact on skin's appearance, making your younger-looking skin appear dull and tired.
If these stress-related unhealthy occurrences become habitual, it's no surprise that you may develop more forehead wrinkles, under eye wrinkles, and frown lines.
When you're stressed, your skin doesn't look good. Cortisol, a stress hormone, can cause breakouts, dull skin, accelerate aging, and aggravate skin conditions like eczema and psoriasis.
Acne
When you are under stress, your body produces more cortisol. Cortisol stimulates the hypothalamus, a part of your brain, to generate a hormone called corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH). CRH is thought to stimulate oil production from sebaceous glands around your hair follicles. These glands' excessive oil production can clog your pores and cause acne.
Bags Under Your Eyes
Swelling or puffiness beneath your eyelids characterizes bags under the eyes. They become more common as you get older because the muscles that support your eyes weaken. Sagging skin due to elasticity loss can also contribute to eye bags.
Dry Skin
The stratum corneum is the outer layer of your skin. It contains protein and lipids that play a critical role in keeping your skin cells hydrated. It also acts as a barrier that protects the skin underneath. When your stratum corneum isn’t working the way it should, your skin can become dry and itchy.
Rashes
Your immune system can be weakened by stress. A weakened immune system can result in dysbiosis, or an imbalance of bacteria in your gut and skin. When this imbalance manifests itself on your skin, it can cause redness or a rash.
Graying Hair and Hair Loss
Common wisdom says stress can make your hair go gray. However, it’s only recently that scientists have figured out why. Cells called melanocytes produce a pigment called melanin that gives your hair its color.
Stress can cause hair follicles to enter a "resting" state, where they do not produce new hair strands. Hair can fall out more easily over time, even if you're just washing, combing, or touching it. Telogen effluvium can also be caused by poor nutrition and hormonal fluctuations.
Tooth Damage
When people are stressed or anxious, they often grind their teeth. This can cause permanent damage to your teeth over time.
Face Flushing
Stress can cause you to alter your breathing patterns. These breathing habits can cause your face to flush for a short period of time.
Sore Lips
When people are stressed, many people chew their lips or the inside of their mouths.
Preventing Stress
Because you can't always avoid the inevitable stress of everyday life, you can at least take the time to pamper your skin during high-stress periods.
For the basics, moisturizer, sunscreen, and gentle washing once or twice a day are required, and no matter how busy you are that day, do your skin a favor and make time for at least these.
If you could already see symptoms of stress on your face, you can look into skincare products that can brighten up a stressed complexion while also helping to boost collagen production by using strong yet gentle antioxidants like Vitamin C creams and serums.
Maintaining a healthy mind is essential for maintaining a healthy body and overall well-being.
Here's how to avoid stress-induced wrinkles by controlling your anxiety levels.
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Get social
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Get physical
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Get calm
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Have a good night's sleep
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Schedule time for relaxing activities
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Maintain good lifestyle habits
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Stay active
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Talk to others
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Avoid drugs and alcohol
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Stay hydrated
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Avoid drugs and alcohol
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Stay hydrated
Don't Let Stress Age You
It's time to slow down if you're noticing that your stressful life is getting the best of you and taking a physical or mental toll. It's okay to take a break and focus on yourself for a while!
Get together with friends for a walk in the park or a nutritious lunch. Get some exercise by attending that aerobics class you used to enjoy. Try some retail therapy by going to that aromatherapy store around the corner that you've been meaning to check out. Then, take a relaxing bubble bath, followed by your favorite anti-aging moisturizer cream (remember, hot water dries out your skin!)
There are numerous methods for reducing stress and minimizing its negative effects. You must find the best stress relief method for yourself, just as you must find the best anti-aging cream for your skin. (It's also perfectly fine if it turns out to be nothing more than sleep.)
Everyone experiences stress from time to time, but when it becomes chronic, it can have serious health consequences.