Lifestyle Factors that have a dramatic effect on your appearance
The quality of your skin, hair, eyes, and nails comes mainly from lifestyle factors such as diet, sleep, exercise, and hydration. While you will certainly see an improvement in your looks if you improve the quality of your skincare routine, your appearance is a visible sign of the overall state of your health. Here are the most critical factors that affect your looks:
Sleep: Sleep is critical to maintaining your appearance; your skin cells regenerate during deep sleep.
Diet: You are what you eat; a healthy diet is the cornerstone of a beautiful appearance.
Exercise: Besides maintaining muscle tone, exercise actually keeps your skin looking young and can reverse skin aging in formerly sedentary people.
Hydration: Dehydrated skin looks saggy and loses its elasticity; make staying hydrated a daily priority.
Let’s go in-depth into these 4 lifestyle factors and how you can improve them in practical ways that will yield tangible benefits in your overall health and appearance:
Sleep: Just like your muscles are repaired during deep sleep, so is your skin; quality sleep is critical to maintaining your looks. There are many things you can do to improve the quality of your sleep, and I strongly suggest that you do not turn to prescription sleeping pills. They are toxic to your body, habit-forming, and I can almost always spot a habitual user by the unhealthy look in their eyes.
Aromatherapy, such as the use of Lavender, or any soothing aroma that you enjoy, is a great way to relax. Drink chamomile and lavender tea, this is a simple and effective way to fall asleep. The lavender tea tastes like soap, but even a few sips have an effect.
Keep a regular exercise regimen; you will sleep much better, longer, and more soundly. Your excess energy will be burned off and you will be much more tired at bedtime.
Stretch and use a massage roller before bed, you will be much more relaxed and have fewer aches and pains throughout the night.
Use white noise to fall asleep and stay asleep. Whether it’s a fan or a white noise machine, this is a very effective way to block out offending noise such as traffic, or a noisy neighbor.
Keep your bedroom as pitch-black as possible, the darker your room the better you will sleep. Blackout curtains make a world of difference, and blackout lining can be added to existing curtains. If you need a night-light, install a red light bulb so that you can safely make your way without waking up fully.
Invest in a good quality mattress and the highest quality linens and pillows you can afford. You spend a third of your life in bed, and your comfort affects both the quality of your sleep and your body’s ability to recuperate from injuries and also the stresses and strains of the day. If you are trying to recuperate from an injury of some kind a quality mattress will help tremendously.
Keep your bedroom cool, it’s much harder to fall asleep in a warm room, and you sleep much more soundly under the covers. As much as I dislike sleeping in air-conditioned air, it’s a trade-off worth making and I apply a second layer of moisturizing oil to protect my skin from the dry air.
Do not watch television or look at any screens one hour before bed or longer. Ideally, don’t have a television in the bedroom, and don’t read an ipad, computer, or phone in bed. The brightness of the screen stimulates your mind to wake back up. Especially do not sleep with the tv on. Even though your eyes may be closed and you are in a light sleep, you cannot have a deep refreshing sleep with all of the stimulation of the light and sound of the television. You can either sleep with the TV on, or you can have a good night’s sleep; not both.
Pay close attention to the content of what you are watching in the evening as well, watch something relaxing rather than violent or otherwise stress inducing. I recently learned that it’s optimal to watch a television show you’ve already seen before bed. This is because since you already know the plot of the show, you aren’t stimulating your mind with new information and wondering what’s going to happen next. I have a limited selection of soothing sit-coms that I’ve watched countless times and that seems to really relax me into a deep sleep while still being able to enjoy watching something before bed.
Sleep in a separate bedroom if your partner snores. Sometimes snoring can be dealt with by breathing Eucalyptus oil to open the airways before bed, adding a humidifier, and avoiding greasy foods and alcohol close to bedtime. But oftentimes the snoring is a symptom of something worse that requires medical attention. Get to the root of snoring, but in the meantime don’t sacrifice necessary restful sleep in order to spare your partner’s feelings. Ideally you want to sleep in the same bed as your partner but sometimes it’s just not possible and don’t be ashamed of that.
Lastly, keep in mind that as one ages it becomes more difficult to have the quality and quantity of sleep that you experienced at a younger age. Lying in bed staring at the ceiling, your thoughts and worries swirling in your mind, not only doesn’t put you to sleep, it’s actually making an association in your mind between your bed and wakefulness. Better in my mind to get up and do a restful, relaxing activity whether it’s reading a book, cuddling with your pets, doing some light housework or organizing; make a cup of herbal tea and enjoy the gift of time to yourself with no outside disturbances. If you choose to watch television or a movie, see if you can take the screen brightness down so it’s not waking you up so much. Hopefully after an hour or two you will start to feel tired and sleep for the rest of the night.
Diet: Your weight is determined by approximately 70-80% diet and 20-30% exercise. Your diet has a similar proportional effect on your skin; the food you eat becomes the building blocks of your cells whether skin cells, or muscles. A poor diet full of preservatives, chemically processed “food stuffs”, starches, sugars, and artificial flavorings will wreak havoc on your appearance. If you really want to look good, it comes from inside, and every small decision cumulatively adds up to how you look. The good news is that once you make the switch to natural, healthy living your body adjusts and will no longer crave the unhealthy foods it was used to. I think the best suggestion I can make is to make every meal adhere to a similar template, make each meal 50% fruits and vegetables, 25-20% protein, and 25-30% healthy starch.
My best suggestions for what diet to adhere to are the Mediterranean diet and the Paleo Diet. I would say that my diet is a combination of both. Both of these diets are backed up by scientific research and never make you feel deprived or hungry. This is a great place to clear up a common misconception; the Paleo diet is not the Atkins diet where your main source of calories is meat. Your main source of nutrition in the Paleo diet is plant based, and then animal proteins occupy about 1/4 to 1/5 of your caloric intake. Many people have launched fantastic websites with scientific explanations of the Paleo diet and countless recipes that are just as delicious and satisfying as comfort food with all the unhealthy stuff. My personal favorite is Paleonomnom.com
Healthy fats: play a vital role in overall health, but they seem to make a particular impact on the appearance of skin, hair, and nails. Common sources are fatty fish such as salmon, and mackerel, eggs, chicken, along with plant based sources such as avocados, olives, hazelnuts, and pumpkin seeds. A diet rich in healthy fats contributes to firm, glowing skin, shiny hair, and strong nails. Having healthy fats in your diet can also have a positive effect on your mood, as the basic building blocks of neurotransmitters such as serotonin are actually cholesterol. It is now widely believed that the rise in the low-fat, high-carb diet craze of the 1980s and 1990s corresponded with the widespread rise in depression.
Wheat and Grains: Aside from the issue of gluten intolerance, I do think that a practical way to maintain your weight is remove grains from your day-to-day diet and reserve them as an infrequent treat the way you would ice cream or greasy comfort food. Quinoa, squash and yams are excellent replacements for rice, bread, and pasta, and they really round out a meal of for example grilled fish and steamed vegetables without giving you the bloated feeling after eating that usually accompanies a bowl of wheat pasta.
Suggestions for Quinoa: The best thing to do to make quinoa tasty for people who may not like the taste is to add something else that is flavorful to the quinoa. Adding salsa, the cooked kind that you buy in glass jars or cans, instantly gives a tangy flavor and moisture to otherwise bland quinoa. In the wintertime I use mushroom soup to cook the quinoa and it makes a savory and hearty healthy starch to serve alongside roast fish and veggies. Adding pesto to the quinoa adds a beautiful herbaceous and aromatic flavor that pairs perfectly with Mediterranean dishes, and is great cold for example on a salad. The most important thing with quinoa is to rinse it very thoroughly to remove the soapy tasting film that coats each one.
Suggestions for squash and yams: Spaghetti squash is a staple on my grocery list during all but the summer season when I tend not to use the oven. It’s the best pasta replacement I have ever found, and it has a mild slightly-sweet, nutty flavor that pairs excellently with much more than just red sauce and meatballs, although I make that about once a week. The trick with spaghetti squash is to cut the squash in half, remove the seeds, and then cook the squash halves facing cut side down on a roasting pan. They will only take about 20-25 minutes at 350-375 degrees F depending on size to cook vs. over an hour if they are facing upwards. Spaghetti squash makes great noodles for Asian dishes as well. I make big batches of Thai curry every winter filled with immunity-boosting ingredients such as ginger, garlic, turmeric, hot peppers, lemongrass, and mushrooms and I have now replaced my gut-busting wheat udon noodles with spaghetti squash and enjoy my big bowls of curry soup even more.
Butternut squash and yams are my other staples and now that our local grocery stores are carrying pre-cut and washed butternut squash pieces it has become even easier to add to our diet. I buy them pre-cut in pieces about the size of French fries, coat them in olive oil and dust them with spices and roast them until they are a delicious crispy texture. The sugars in the squash caramelize and develop into a sweet/savory deliciousness that doesn’t taste like diet food at all.
How to maintain a healthy diet over the long haul:
I think the most important things in regards to eating healthy over the long term are finding recipes that you actually enjoy and weekly meal planning. Eating healthy is very expensive and the only way to successfully stay on budget is to make a plan and stick to it throughout the week. For example, I might make several cups of quinoa on a Sunday night, along with several pans of roasted vegetables, and then throughout the week I will add different flavorings to the quinoa and add different proteins to each meal making flavorful dinners and lunches with distinctly different flavor profiles. If you shop for each meal of the week individually, you will spend a fortune by the end of week and waste much of what you buy. But if you plan carefully you can make several different meals out of similar ingredients.
In terms of finding recipes you enjoy, I would say that browsing recipes that appeal to you on the Internet is a great time investment because if you don’t make exciting, flavorful food you are probably just going to go back to your previous unhealthy diet. We naturally want to be satisfied with both the flavors and the amount of the food that we eat, and long-term there’s only so much self-denial a person can take in regards to their diet. Plus it’s important to break out of the idea that dieting is some sort of penance that we’re supposed to suffer through. It’s very trendy nowadays to say that diets are not useful and that instead everyone needs a lifestyle overhaul, I agree with that sentiment completely because a diet is usually a temporary regimen and when that ends people typically go back to their previous habits. However for someone who is just starting to make a change in his or her diet, at least a diet such as the Paleo Diet or the Mediterranean Diet is a framework for someone to start with.
Bring your lunch to work: Buying lunch during the workday seems like a necessary convenience but often it comes at a big cost to both your budget and your health. Making your own lunch can be very easy, but while rushing out the door in the morning few people have the time or the inclination to prepare and pack a healthy meal. The time to make lunch is when you are cooking dinner, simply make an extra portion of your meal and put aside, it is a marginal extra effort with a tangible reward simply because the healthiest food is usually what you cook for yourself, and with the typical office-workers lunch costing at least $10-15 dollars the savings quickly add up.
Digestion: Ensuring proper digestion of your food and efficient waste elimination is essential to your overall health, and from a vanity standpoint it’s essential for having a slim waistline. Besides having a healthy fiber-rich diet, my suggestions for a sluggish digestive system are adding a fiber supplement made from psyllium husk, the active ingredient in Metamucil that you can now buy just on its own. You just mix it into a glass of water and drink it and it has no flavor. The caplets don’t break down in your stomach efficiently so I recommend buying the loose ground psyllium husk.
Probiotics: Just as important to a healthy diet are probiotics. Many people rely on probiotic supplements but testing of many on the market reveal that they often do not contain what they claim to, and that during the shipping process many of the bacteria are killed and the end result is useless. Probiotics are found in food, and not just yogurt; shellfish, fruits and vegetables, and fermented foods such as kimchi and sauerkraut are full of probiotics provided they are not pasteurized which kills the beneficial bacteria. Look for fermented foods that are sold in the refrigerated section of the grocery store and read the label carefully to make sure they have not been pasteurized.
After-Dinner Stroll:
From a mechanical standpoint of aiding digestion, a walk after dinner is one of the best ways I have found to speed digestion after dinner. Here is a great article that discusses the benefits of an after-dinner stroll on both digestion and also blood sugar levels. Apparently taking a walk after dinner regulates blood sugar levels by causing more glucose to be cleared from the bloodstream and absorbed by the muscles: https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/24/really-the-claim-taking-a-walk-after-a-meal-aids-digestion/
Staying hydrated is also essential for your digestive system to work efficiently. Most people stop taking in liquids after a certain hour before bed, so a great way to stay hydrated overnight is to eat melon at desert. Melons are mostly composed of water, watermelon unsurprisingly having the highest percentage, and the water is released slowly overnight as your body digests.
Stay hydrated: Aside from the food you eat hydration is key to maintaining your health and appearance. I suggest starting the day with a glass or two of water before your morning coffee, which is a diuretic that just like alcohol dehydrates you. This is the optimal time to take psyllium husk. The recommended average intake for a man is 13 cups (3 liters) of total beverages a day, and for women it is about 9 cups (2.2 liters), according to the Mayo Clinic. I recommend giving up sodas, sugary juices, and sugary sports drinks as well as artificially sweetened and flavored drinks altogether. For various reasons whether it’s increased sugar intake, caloric intake, or toxic artificial sweeteners, flavorings, and dyes these beverages should considered a harmful habit that one is obliged to break such as smoking cigarettes.
Filtered tap water, sparkling mineral water, and chilled herbal teas will provide all of your hydration needs at an affordable price and if your tap water tastes bad even after filtering, keep cut citrus fruits in the fridge and lightly flavor your water. Likewise you can leave pitchers of filtered tap water with mint leaves and cucumber slices in the refrigerator for a refreshing and almost calorie-free drink.
Mild dehydration can sometimes occur with symptoms are not readily apparent and do not seem to correspond to thirst. For the most part they are confusion, tiredness, headache, and dizziness, but quickly you can become more seriously dehydrated so it’s important to get into the habit of staying hydrated.
From the perspective of your looks, hydration is key to keeping a firm, young looking face. When you become dehydrated your skin loses its elasticity, giving a drawn, saggy look to your appearance. So if your overall health and the function of almost every single organ function isn’t reason enough; drink enough water and stay hydrated for the sake of vanity.
Exercise: Exercise is vital to maintaining your looks and health, and scientific research has proven that regular exercise keeps skin firm and young looking, and for someone who has been sedentary, it can reverse aging and return a youthful look to the skin. Here is a great explanation of that process: Younger Skin Through Exercise
Exercise is essential but what kind of exercises is best? First of all my philosophy is that any exercise is better than none. So when you consider your baseline, which for many people is a completely sedentary lifestyle, gentle walking is a major improvement. So if you do not exercise at all, I would suggest just starting to take leisurely walks; for example a nice walk during the day, and then a stroll after dinner to aid in digestion.
High intensity workouts are in fashion, and often they do more harm than good in my opinion. Whether it’s crossfit, ferociously-paced spinning classes, or triathlons, leave that to the advanced-level athletes.
The 4 important things that I recommend one should accomplish while exercising are the following:
Cardio
Strength Training
Core Strength
Flexibility and Mobility
Cardio: Conditioning the heart and lungs to perform for sustained periods of time.
Figuring out which kind of cardio to do is key, sometimes high impact activities like running on hard pavement or a treadmill can be hard on the joints. Elliptical machines can be great for some people but at the same time because they are a symmetrical machine and the majority of people do not have symmetrical bodies. Cycling on an upright spinning bike is the lowest impact cardio exercise that you can do.
Strength training: Strength training is one of the best things a person can do for his or her health and looks, regardless of gender or age. Maintaining the strength of muscles, and bones is in everyone’s interest. The old phrase use it or lose it is as true as with muscle mass or bone density, and both will atrophy without regular strengthening. One of the best benefits of strength training is that your body is burning calories during it’s muscle recovery phase so unlike cardio, you are still burning calories for the next day or two after your exercise.
3 Strength Training Myths To Dispel:
Heavy Weights: You don’t need to lift heavy weights to see gains in your strength and muscle development. This has been proven by research and in my own experience I have bad much better results using lighter weights. I have achieved my desired look and have more strength for day-to-day tasks but without the regular sprains and injuries I previously suffered trying to bulk up.
Full Body workout: The best piece of advice I received was to exercise each muscle group as intensely as you could without injury once a week. As soon as I switched to this routine, I started to get the muscle development I was looking for. So rather than a few full-body workouts a week that overworked my joints, ligaments, and tendons; I now do one day each of shoulders, pulling muscles (biceps and back), pushing muscles (chest and triceps), and legs.
The big bodybuilders are intimidating: I finally found an effective strength training routine, after ineffective personal training, books, and videos, by asking the bodybuilders in my local gym what they found effective. Although these bodybuilders are large and physically imposing, the majority of them are proud to share their deep knowledge of fitness and the human body and are anything but intimidating in conversation or approachability. I have had many people especially women tell me that they don’t like to lift weights at the gym because they feel uncomfortable working out next to a muscular man lifting a large amount of weight. But unless out of a concern for physical safety these fears are unfounded simply because everyone at the gym is paying attention to what they are doing and their workout, so whatever you are doing is probably completely unnoticed.
Men vs. Women:
I recommend that men and women take slightly different approaches to strength training because of the overall look the different genders are usually trying to attain.
For Women: Lower weights, more reps.
Although aesthetic preferences have changed greatly in the last decade with the waif look by and large being left by the wayside, most women do not want a bulky, muscular look, and are looking to lengthen and tone their physique. So for women I suggest strength training regularly with light weights and resistance bands. Pilates both mat and gyrotonic are an excellent way to hone a strong, lean physique with long lines and without bulky muscles. While men will have just as much benefit as women, for women this is really an ideal exercise with many positive benefits such as increasing core and back strength and enhancing posture.
For Men: Higher weight, fewer reps.
One of the best things a man can do for his appearance is to strength train and add some muscle mass to his frame. When asked, I always recommend to an older man who is looking to enhance his looks; lift weights and gain defined muscles, lose weight until your spare tire, belly, and man boobs are gone, and bleach your teeth. Compared to hair dyeing, cosmetic surgery and hair transplants, other than the age-old attractants such as money and power; a fit, strong body, and a healthy looking smile will be reliably attractive.
Something that happens as we age is that skin loses its elasticity. Our skin is sort of like a bag over our muscles and skeleton, and it appears later in life that a person’s skin is getting bigger and the body underneath is getting smaller, gaining muscle mass is a reliable way to fill up your skin.
Part of the positive effect of strength training is the effect on hormone levels. Lifting weights and other strength building exercises increases testosterone, so rather than turning to testosterone supplements that can have dangerous side effects, strength training is a way that a man can increase his testosterone and maintain it over time. Increased levels of testosterone in a man who was previously deficient will aid in sleep quality, improved mood and sex drive.
Core Strength: Core strength is essential to maintaining mobility, keeping back pain at bay, and cultivating a good posture over time, however don’t waste your time doing endless isolation exercises trying to attain 6-pack abs unless you have lost all the fat around your mid-section. Spend that time strength training or doing cardio. Besides exercises for general core strength such as the plank, ab exercises are really a medium to advanced exercise. So if you have a spare tire around the middle, I would suggest doing the plank for as long as you can, each exercise session, and also doing the quadruped, which works areas of your core that a traditional plank does not. If you have lost weight and have loose skin on your abdomen, I suggest doing bentonite clay masks once a week to tighten the skin back to the muscles.
Mobility and Flexibility: Dynamic Stretching vs. Static Stretching
If you have been injured at some point, and physical therapy was a part of the healing process, I suggest continuing to do those therapy exercises as a way to avoid re-injuring the area. I recommend doing mobility exercises as a warm up before your cardio or strength training to warm up joints, muscles, ligaments, and tendons so that these body parts are at their full capacity for the workout you are about to do. These mobility exercises can also be considered to be dynamic stretches as opposed to static stretching, which is what most people think of when they think of stretching.
Static Stretching should be done after the workout, because it has been proven to make you vulnerable to injury because your muscles, ligaments, and tendons do not have the elasticity to bounce and be reactive to the stimulus of exercise. Stretching after exercise can help improve flexibility, and reduce pain and muscle soreness.
So my recommendation for every exercise session is to do dynamic stretching/mobility exercises to warm up whatever body parts you will be exercising, and then doing static stretching at the very end of your workout.
Rest: Fitness As A Marathon Not A Sprint
Rest is as essential for your exercise regimen as the exercise itself. Most people’s sports injuries are the result of overuse, and if you are exercising for the purpose of muscle development you need to set aside rest time for those muscles to regenerate and grow. This can be difficult for some people with high energy levels who need to burn off their excess energy with a vigorous workout every day, but it’s the only way to not only obtain their desired results but also to remain injury-free so as to continue workout out into the future. The worst thing a person can do is become injured and then become forced into being sedentary so instead of thinking of the road to fitness being a sprint, consider the longer-term and reframe it in your mind as a marathon.
Besides simply not exercising 2 days a week, sleep is essential for muscle recovery and development. Not just sleep in general, deep sleep is when skin and repair and grow. Forgoing sleep in order to exercise is foolish in my opinion, and I suggest that people prioritize sleep over exercise. Simply put: if you are sleep deprived don’t go to the gym, go home and sleep.
Conclusion: Vitality, Balance, Beauty
A healthy body in balance, radiating vitality and able to enjoy all of the physical aspects of living is the greatest gift a person can give him or herself, but rather than working towards a fixed end result, it is a daily journey that becomes the sum total of every small decision a person makes. It’s just like cleaning a home, you can clean a home to spotless perfection, but soon it will become dirty again. The same with your body, you can work to become a physical specimen but if you abandon your healthy lifestyle you will quickly return to your prior state.
The key element to changing to and maintaining a healthy lifestyle is mindfulness, cultivating a deep knowledge of your mind and body is the biggest tool you can have in this endeavor. Take the time to check in with yourself and be aware of how you feel. Take note of the fine line between pushing your physical limits while exercising and reining yourself in so that you don’t injure yourself. Tune into how you feel after you eat certain foods, it might not be so hard to give up unhealthy foods if you notice that you have a stomach ache after eating them. There is such diversity amongst our species that there is no one size fits all regimen that will work for everyone. The only way to find the one that will work for you is to start trying different and healthier ways of moving, eating, and resting and be mindful of the results and self-correct through trial and error until you reach your optimal state. It’s difficult, time consuming, can be expensive, but once you get there you won’t be able to imagine living any other way, and if you happen to also become extremely attractive in the process well that’s not such a bad side effect is it?