Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This is a saying that you may constantly hear people tell you.
While it’s true, it doesn’t always make you feel better about your skin and your beauty. You worry about the health of your skin, whether it’s oily, dry, or a combination of both. There are worries about drying out the skin or affecting the cells with toxins.
So, you want to improve the skin nutrition as much as possible. This is more than just what you put on your skin or how often you wash it. It involves diet, exercise, and UV rays. Here’s a look at everything you need to know about skin nutrition. It’s time to protect that outer, protective layer of your body.
Your Skin Isn’t Always What You Eat
There is a common belief that eating fatty foods will make your skin unhealthy and greasy. That isn’t quite the case. In fact, you want to get some oily foods to help balance the skin oils and improve the health of the cells. It’s all about getting the right types of fats and oils.
Focus more on oily fish and avocados; foods that are full of omega 3 fatty acids and unsaturated fats. These aren’t just good for your skin, but your whole body. They help to encourage healthy oil production in your skin, meaning your dry skin condition is soothed naturally and from the inside.
At the same time, you want to cut down on the food that causes your hormones to become imbalanced. This is especially the case for saturated and trans fats and refined sugar. Your body doesn’t need any of these to support the health. All you do is release more stress throughout your body, affecting the balance of your oils. You produce far more natural oil than you need to, making your skin and hair look greasy.
Of course, the extra oil production will lead to more acne on your body. You’ll need to find ways around the oily skin.
So, it’s not fatty foods but the wrong types of fatty foods. It’s all about how the food reacts on the inside, causing symptoms on the outside.
Make Sure You’re Hydrated in the Right Way
Hydration is essential for the whole body’s health. However, those eight glasses of water a day aren’t going to do much for your dry skin condition. If you’re drinking water, you want to do it for the right reasons: for the overall health of your body.
The water you drink will go to each of your organs. Your skin is the least important of all organs in your body. It’s also not water that helps the moisture of your skin. It’s the natural oil production and the bombs or lotions that you use. If you want to hydrate your skin, you need to moisturize.
Look out for natural options that don’t have toxins in them. Coconut oil, avocado oil, and olive oil are all healthy and affordable options. You could also use almond oil, although it’s not as effective as the other three.
Coconut oil is the best. It’s full of antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties. It will get into the pores and kill the bacteria causing acne. It reduces inflammation within the pores from environmental toxins, meaning the bacteria and dirt can escape easily.
You can also create a good makeup remover with coconut oil. It draws particles to it, getting out the minute particles that end up sticking in your pores and cause acne-forming bacteria growing.
At the same time, the oil moisturizes and soaks in. It will encourage your body to reduce your natural oil production if you have naturally oily skin, as your skin isn’t as dehydrated. If you have damaged and dry skin, the oils mentioned above will help to heal and improve the look.
Get the Right Nutrients into Your Skin
Whether you eat them or apply them topically, you want to make sure you add the right nutrients to your skin. While your body will benefit from iron, calcium, and potassium, your skin wants antioxidants and zinc. It needs the right nutrients to boost collagen production, improve elasticity, support the cells, and fight against infection.
Let’s start with vitamin A. This is known as retinol, and something that you want to look out for in any skin care product you buy. It’s one of the most widely available vitamins, and something your body can produce naturally.
Vitamin A helps to inhibit the sebum production, helping to limit the greasiness of your skin and avoiding acne growth. It will boost the collagen production, helping to avoid tears in the lower layers of the skin because the collagen supports the elasticity of the skin. Not getting enough vitamin A can lead to the skin looking scaly and dry. You’ll usually see raised bumps at first, but they will become bigger and drier as the vitamin A deficiency gets worse.
At the same time, make sure you get enough vitamin D. This is one of those vitamins that you can gain from the sun, but you can also get it through your diet. It’s one that most of us are deficient in, and we tend to link it to calcium and the bones. Vitamin D helps to balance the vitamin A to protect your liver and other organs. It will also help to protect the skin and tissues from UV damage.
Vitamin C is another nutrient that you need to get. It’s an antioxidant that your body can’t create or store. It only uses whatever you give it at the time. But it’s so important for the overall health, as well as the nutritional health of the skin. Not getting enough vitamin D causes scurvy, which starts as a dry skin condition. The skin can’t produce enough collagen, so the skin rips and overstretches.
You will likely link vitamin C to the immune system. It certainly helps to repair the skin cells, making your skin cells look healthier and brighter. Vitamin C is relatively easy to get through citric fruits. You can use them in the diet or directly on the skin to brighten and improve the health of the skin. When you get more of this antioxidant, your skin will heal quicker and more effectively from wounds, acne, and UV damage.
Vitamin C isn’t the only antioxidant you need to get into your body. It’s important to boost the amount of vitamin E you get. This is essential for improving the cell health. It’s one of the antioxidants that efficiently fights against the free radicals that lead to cell abnormalities and signs of aging.
With the right levels of vitamin E, you can reduce problems like wrinkles, fine lines, and blemishes. You can keep dark spots at bay and make your skin look brighter and healthier.
But what about when you already have skin damage? What about if you’ve not cared about your skin in your past and now you want to repair it? It’s time to look at getting more zinc—and getting it directly into your skin through a zinc oxide cream is one of the best options.
Zinc has natural healing properties. It will work with the immune system and protein creation elements to repair the physical damage to your skin. Your wounds will heal quickly, as the nutrient helps support the actual skin tissues and membranes. There are also anti-inflammatory properties, helping to reduce sensitivity, burning, and irritation from the wounds.
You can also repair some sun damage with the zinc. It will get deep into the layers to boost cell health and reduce signs of aging. At the same time, there are studies that show this is a mineral to use if you have acne problems. It’s more effective than some antibiotics prescribed to ease acne on the body. It will work with the vitamin An intake.
Do the Right Exercises
You need to exercise for the health of the skin. The more exercise you do, the happier you will be. This helps to eliminate problems of stress hormones in the body. While we’ve already looked at how stress affects the oil production within the skin, we haven’t looked at other side effects.
Too much stress affects the ability for the body to absorb nutrients. The skin doesn’t get the vitamins and minerals it needs to support the condition of the skin. So, you need to improve your happy hormone production to improve the way your skin absorbs all the nutrients on offer.
But don’t just do any exercise. You want to do low-impact exercises. Doing too much high-impact exercise will cause the skin to sag, so you end up with puffy parts of the body. This is common in the stomach, the chest, and the face.
At the same time, you want to wear the right clothing. Good sports clothes will absorb your sweat. This prevents chaffing and irritation while you exercise so that you can focus on the positive elements of the activity. Make sure you get comfortable, sweat absorbing materials and remove them as soon as you’ve finished exercising. You don’t want the sweat to get back into your pores to cause a blockage.
Apply the Sunscreen Throughout the Year
You know you need to use sunscreen throughout the summer. However, do you apply it in the winter as well? You need to use sunscreen throughout the year, and make sure the SPF is at least 30. In the hotter climates or if you have fairer skin, you will want to increase the SPF to 50+.
Don’t just put on a thin layer. You want to put a relatively thick layer that will take around 15 minutes of your skin to soak in. This means you’ve got the right coverage when you’re out in the skin. And make sure you give the skin 15-20 minutes to absorb the protection.
Winter sun may have weaker UV rays, but it still has some. Without protection, you increase the amount of damage inflicted on your skin cells. This is especially the case if you are around snow. Glare from the snow is just as bad as theglare from the water. It intensifies the UV rays.
Consider Indoor Tanning Rather than Outdoor Tanning
Consider indoor tanning beds close to home. These are far safer than opting for the real sun. Companies are regulated on the length of time you can spend on the tanning beds, meaning you only get as many UV rays as you need. Your sun develops a natural protection while getting the vitamin D needed to support the overall health.
You will want to opt for a reputable tanning salon. Speak to someone who will be able to set a schedule that works for your skin type. If you have darker skin, you’ll need more time on the sun beds than someone with lighter skin will need.
Do still apply sunscreen for the tanning beds and out in the sun, especially with fairer skin. The vitamin D gained from the tanning beds doesn’t counter the damage the UV rays will do.
Give Your Skin Time to Heal
The nutritional tips above won’t work overnight. You won’t suddenly wake up with flawless, beautiful skin. It can take three or four months for all the benefits to show through the layers of the skin. The nutrients need to get deep into the cells. They need to help fresh cells grow and develop, while you shed away the dead, damaged cells.
You’ll need to give your body time to improve the collagen production and elasticity. Your dry skin conditions aren’t going to disappear overnight. You won’t suddenly reverse the excessive oil production.
What you want to focus on are all the benefits you will gain. If after three months you haven’t seen any benefits, you’ll want to consider increasing your vitamin intake and talking to your doctor about your options, especially with skin conditions.
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