The High Cost of Skin Care Products

October 4, 2008 by shirley  
Filed under ANTI-AGING, SKIN CARE

There is no doubt about the fact that it costs a lot of money to take care of your skin.
While quality skincare products are not cheap, you need to think of them as an investment in your future, as using the right products will ensure that your skin will be in optimum health for as long as possible.

While it is not necessary to buy all the latest products that come out on the market you should certainly consider spending the money on a few of the basics that you need and ensure that the products are suitable for your particular skin type.

You can save quite a lot of money by buying your products from some of the big online stores that sell cosmetics and skin care products.

By buying from these online stores you can be saving money that will allow you to have extra funds to spend on other areas of your skincare.

Of course there are many things that you can do for your skin that won’t cost any money at all, such as staying out of the sun where possible, refraining from smoking, and staying away from areas where secondhand smoke is present.

Drinking sufficient water won’t cost you a lot of money but it will certainly do a lot for your overall health and in particular your skincare as you remain hydrated.

Getting sufficient sleep is also an excellent way of improving the condition of your skin.

Along with your environment removing any stress from your life will also help improve your health and your skin.

Any form of medication that you take can affect the condition of your skin and while it might not be possible to eliminate meditation sometimes there are alternatives that can give you the same results while not having the side effects that can affect other areas of your health.

5 Anti-Aging Tips Every Women Must Know

October 3, 2008 by shirley  
Filed under ANTI-AGING

1. Relax
Think you are stressed out? Your body would react negatively to the stress and the end result of chronic stress is premature aging. Your DNA is affected over time. The part of the DNA associated with aging, the telomere, protects the DNA from damage. Well your telomeres fray away with aging and with the protection gone, the cell dies. Stressed out individuals display more badly damaged telomeres as compared to their peers who are better able to cope with stress.
If your work is too stressful, maybe a less stressful job might be in order. If you are overwhelmed at home, consider getting help from friends or relatives, or hiring help.
Find ways to cope with stress. Release tension with a run or a swim or go out for a walk to get away from it all, temporarily.

2. Quit smoking

Cigarette smoke ages your body prematurely in too many ways to list in this one article. If you smoke, quit. If you don’t smoke, don’t start. Stay away from smoking areas and keep away from smokers when they puff their cigarettes as second hand smoke is just as damaging.

3. Use Sunscreen at all times
Go for an SPF15 for full protection. The sun’s UV rays damage your skin at cellular level. Though your body rapidly repairs the damage, if the damage is too much, your skin gets red and blisters form as you develop a sunburn. Even a tan is a sign of skin damage as the darkening of the skin wit melanin is a defense mechanism against sun damage. UV rays damage the skin’s collagen

Sunblocks have chemical or physical sunscreens to block off the UV rays. SPF or Sun Protection Factor tells you how much longer you can stay in the sun before you burn. For example, an SPF 4 sunscreen allows you to stay in the sun 4 times longer than if you had gone without any protection.

For optimal protection, go for at least SPF15, and reapply frequently if you sweat a lot or get into the water.

4. Eat your fruit, veggies and nuts.

These are rich in antioxidants. To cut the long story short, we are constantly bombarded by free radicals. These could be the by product of oxidation within the body, through the body’s natural processes, or could be due to environmental factors.

Either way, free radicals wreak havoc on out bodies. Free radicals are unstable and steal electrons from their neighbors, rendering them unstable too, leading to a chain reaction. In this way, cell membranes and even the DNA of cells get damaged which in turn, speeds up the aging process.

Antioxidants neutralize free radicals by donating electrons to them and stabilizing them, even while they stay stable themselves. In this way, antioxidants eliminate the threat.

By eating your fruit and veggies and some nuts, you get the antioxidants your body needs to beat those free radicals.

5. Sleep at least 8 hours every night.

When you sleep, your body repairs itself most effectively, producing new cells to replace the old, worn out cells. By depriving yourself of sufficient sleep, you do not allow your body to regenerate itself properly and end up aging more quickly than you should. No doubt, this regeneration of cells is ongoing even when you are awake, but when you sleep, the natural renewal process is at its peak. When you don’t get enough sleep, your body produces more stress hormones that interfere with your skin’s collagen production. Collagen is what supports your skin and as collagen levels decrease your skin begins to sag and wrinkles form. Look at yourself after a sleepness night. Lack of sleep gives you puffy eyes and dark rings which makes you look much older.

So grandma was right after all. Eat your veggies, stay out of the sun and sleep early every night to preserve your youth.

Should You Take Multi Vitamins?

September 18, 2008 by shirley  
Filed under ANTI-AGING

The question is often asked whether multivitamins should be taken each day.
There are people who believe that we will get all the nutrition we require from the foods that we eat but this is no longer the case.
Many of the foods we eat are processed and have all sorts of additives that can be detrimental to our health.

Even fresh foods don’t have the same minerals that they once had.
In some growing areas most of the minerals that were once in the soil have long since been depleted and the food that is grown in that soil doesn’t have the same values as we have come to expect.

Additional stresses are placed on our health with pollution, work stress and so on, all making demands on our body and the nutrients that we need.

Even fitness training, while good for our health, places additional demands on the body and this is best addressed with supplementation.

A good multivitamin taken once or twice a day can help to balance out any deficiencies that we might have.
This will help us to train better and to stay fitter and healthier and not become as susceptible to illness.

Most of the best multivitamin supplements include a balanced proportion of vitamins and nutrients that meet the recommended daily dosage for an average person.
If you are doing intensive fitness training then your requirements might be higher than normal and that might necessitate additional supplementation.

Once of the most effective methods of testing your needs for vitamins and minerals is through hair sample testing.
Hair sample tests can give you an accurate graph of your levels of vitamins and minerals and based on this information you can supplement your diet to bring back a balance in your nutrition.

Sometimes deficits in these areas can take months to address and without accurate testing the process will take longer.
Everything from smoking to alcohol will deplete the body of essential vitamins and minerals.
Supplements will help to counter these effects.

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