Anti-Age Your Skin with Exercise
While we don't often think of exercise has having any specific anti-aging effects on skin, experts say it most definitely does.
One is by influencing the natural production of collagen, a kind of connective tissue that plumps your skin and gives your face the bloom of youth.
"Our fibroblasts, which are the collagen-producing cells in the skin, became fewer in number and they become lazy as we get older," says Kunin. Skin becomes less firm, drier, and even more wrinkled.
However, add an exercise routine to your beauty regimen and Kunin says you infuse skin cells with oxygen as well as other nutrients. Both set up ideal conditions for collagen production.
"Give your skin what it needs to function properly and it's going to behave better and look younger," says Kunin.
And when it comes to looking good, Kunin says certain exercises can even help break up pockets of cellulite -- that cottage cheese-like skin on the buttocks, backs of thighs, and upper arms. This forms, she says, when fibrous connections in skin are pulled tighter, leading to puckering in pockets of fat.
By toning and pulling the muscles with workouts such as Pilates or weight training, Kunin says you reverse that tension, which reduces the appearance of cellulite.
It's a secret yoga instructors have known for years.
"Stretching tones and conditions the muscles. Skin attached to those muscles becomes firm and beautiful," says Vasanthi Bhat, founder of Vasantha Yoga Health and Fitness in Santa Clara, Calif.
Indeed, Bhat says that yoga stretches, along with controlled and conscious breathing not only helps tone the entire body, but facial muscles as well. This, he suggests, can deliver results similar to a face-lift.
"Backward bending poses such as fish, camel, and cobra have the power of a face-lift if done regularly, while forward bending poses such as child pose, bowing pose, and modified headstand bring a rich blood supply to the facial skin," says Bhat.
Goldberg tells WebMD that if you exercise the body, you may also influence the rate at which your face ages. Why?
"Initially exercise helps tone and tightens muscles but a muscle that is well toned is also more pliable, meaning that it is holding less tension," says Goldberg.
When you exercise, he says, your whole body tends to relax, including the muscles in your face.
"Eventually crow's feet and anger expression lines are going to soften up. Certainly you will prevent new ones from forming. So in this respect regular exercise can help you to look younger longer," Goldberg adds.
visit www.spashop.tk
|
|
