Important health tips for skin

Topically treating your skin issues using natural ingredients is very necessary. But do you know that the things you put in your body play a bigger role in determining the state of your skin and health in general?

Here, I will be sharing with you the Do's and Don't s for a healthy beautiful skin. 

1. Eat Healthy: I know you have heard this uncountable times but do you really take it seriously? Well , if you don't, you should start now. The first and probably the most important thing is DRINK WATER,  I said WATER.  The amount of water you drink everyday determines how clear and flawless your skin will look. Why did I stress water? because when you hear drink a lot, it is natural to think that drinking coffee,  cola, lemonade, beer are all part of drinking. Sure they are and you are right, but I don't mean that kind of drinking, I mean the kind of drinking that will help detoxify or if you like wash out the toxins built up in your body.  Literally, only water has that power. 

If you are  petite like me and weigh about 50kg, drinking around 2 litres of water everyday would do the magic. If you weigh around 70kg, 2 to 3 litres of water will do for you. If you are bigger then you do need more.
Take your usual ration of coffee that you enjoy having in a day, I can't take that away from you because I don't practice what I call the denial medicine. I would rather you eat whatever makes you happy but just don't over do it. It is important  that you balance it with just as much amount of water or more.

Secondly, cut down on what ever quantity of food you eat. Like I said earlier, I am not a fan of denials. I wouldn't tell you to stop eating meat, stop eating Cabs, eat only Proteins, NO, that's wrong. Each and every part of the food you eat has some nutrients in it that your body needs. The issue of dieting is a very broad one so I will have to make a separate blog for it. It is an enormous topic.

Eat what you enjoy eating , just cut down on the quantity, especially if you think you need to shed some weight. If not then concentrate on eating those nutritious food you love. You should enjoy what you eat because it adds up to your quality of life.

If you are working on shedding some weight then cut that quantity of rice or meat you eat in a day. If you are used to eating a full plate, cut it down to a half plate, this will be difficult at the beginning but trust me, discipline is what you need. There is a physiology to adjusting to a particular amount of food that saturates you. Do you know you can train your stomach? Yes, you can teach your stomach to be fine with a particular amount of food. This is not easy, just like nothing good comes easy but it is achievable with self discipline. 

Do I need to tell you not to smoke or to quit smoking if you are already doing it? Well I know you know that already right?  I would just give you the benefit of the doubt that you already know smoking is one habit that has absolutely no health benefit whatsoever. 

There are some food that are particularly beneficial to the skin,  l will be giving you a whole list of food that will help you achieve that flawless skin. Check on my future blogs.

2. Make good use of the pores on your skin: The pores on our skin actually has a function. This is your skin's mode of substance transport.  Your skin absorbs substances through the pores and it also eliminates substances through them. When you apply your moisturisers, deodorants, lotions, powder, topical medicines on your skin, they would go into your bloodstream or just in your skin tissues or muscles. Your skin sometimes also pick up substances from the air even though we usually don't realise how.  Have you ever noticed that after spending time around people who smoke, you would usually go home smelling like you've just smoked, your partner might even suspect you are doing something fishy huh.Your Skin is the culprit here.

I agree, sometimes we have no power or control over what our skin takes in through the pores maybe because of the environment we are unwillingly exposed to.  On the other hand you can control how often your skin eliminates dirt. You are wondering how to do this? It's actually simple.....Sweat, yes,  sweat it out. 

We sweat when we exercise, walk a long distance, sometimes even when we cook in the kitchen or vacuum the house, we sweat. Most times we don't enjoy sweating but they are actually quite beneficial to the skin.
The skin excretes or if you like, gets rid of dirt when we  sweat so try to feel good while sweating. 

The very important thing though is that you take a shower after sweating to wash off those dirt lying on your skin and to tighten (close) your pores afterwards, you don't want those dirt clogging your pores.

Usually when we talk about exercising,  going to the gym or participating in marathons or going jogging every morning does cross our minds. Now relax, lay back, don't freak out just yet trying to think of how to start creating time in between working 12 hours a day and maybe taking your kids to school, cooking for them and at the same time keeping yourself looking beautiful. 

A lot of accredited medical researches has shown that taking a walk for just about 10 minutes a day could make a huge difference.  So, let the car rest sometimes, save all those money you spend on gas, take a walk to the grocery store or to visit that friend who lives a few miles away or to go to your hair dressing salon. Walk it, walking does the magic and isn't it awesome that you don't have to create that extra time to burn some energy, you can do it while taking care of your business.
 
A lot of people are in the habit of sending their children or younger ones on short errands like picking up their ringing phone from the dinning table while they are sitting on the couch or sending them to get you a cup of water from the kitchen while you are lying in your sofa. Stop doing that, I see it as being lazy, get up from that couch, stretch your legs if they are stiff and go pick up your phone yourself, WALK to the kitchen and get yourself that cup of water. These little movements count. Change that habit and you will notice the unbelievable difference it makes.

Now, I am not saying it is not a great thing to go workout in the gym or go jogging for an hour everyday. Reality is, if you are working extra hours or have kids and home to take care of, you usually can not afford that luxury.  Changing all these other "tiny" mobility habits might just give you the result you need without you having to compromise a lot.

3. Leave Your Face Alone: We all know that moment when you sit on your desk with your face resting on your palm, I used to do that a lot and it was more like an impulse than it was a habit. Our hand is one part of our body that most frequently comes in contact with different organisms including bacterias and viruses. We are usually not aware of the amount of microorganisms that rent a home on our palms. We are talking about millions of them, you'll most probably freak out if you are to see these tiny monsters with your eyes. 

These monsters are not usually nice, they'd eat you up if you let them.

Washing your hands is one way to reduce their number but no matter how thoroughly you wash your hands, you can hardly get rid of all of them.
Nature didn't think we should do without them so there are some microorganisms that actually are  legitimate tenants on our palm or our skin in general.  They have just as much right as you do to dwell on your skin so you have no choice than to accept them and live with them.

These monsters are thus  called resident bacterial flora. They are there, and they ain't going anywhere.  Bad news though is, like monsters they may decide to hurt you sometimes and when they strike, the result is bad skin conditions.
If they happen to attack your face, they'll cause Breakouts, Pimples, Acne and all those awful things you definitely don't want on your face. How do you avoid this? Keep them away, LEAVE YOUR FACE ALONE.

Secondly,  if unfortunately they succeed in attacking your face and you notice black heads, white heads or pimples, please..do not pop. I know this is a hard one, it could be super tempting but if you love your skin and you don't want to spend days concealing dark spots, then try not to fall for the temptation....just leave your face alone. 

The next point is, you might also rightfully think that frequently cleaning your face may help you clear your face or keep it free from inflammations. This thinking is very logical as it makes sense, but, it is physiologically wrong, this is why:

Naturally our skin produces oil which are meant to keep it moisturised if you like. These oils are being produced under the skin and released through the pores.  When you wash your face too frequently,  you are automatically ripping the skin off the oil it has produced already. Just like other auto-regulated organs in our body, whenever the skin feels it has not enough oil, it automatically produces more. 

Like I mentioned earlier, the oils pass through the pores. At this point you can already guess what will happen. More oil gets produced thereby increasing the chances of the pores getting clogged.  The pores tend to get clogged and vuala! Pimples, Acne, Blackheads, Frustration, increased hormone levels,  more Breakouts , more washing, more breakouts and it goes on and on and then we run to the dermatologist totally sure we have some terrible skin disease we saw on Google.

It's that simple, leave your face alone. Washing your face more than twice a day is too much. Choose which part of the day you want to use soap or cleanser on your face.
This I suggest would be just before you go to bed, especially if you wear make up. Then in the morning just wash with water and that should be enough, unless you indulge in some kind of activities that gets your face dirty while you are sleeping.

Exfoliating the skin of your face is also necessary but do this not more than 3 or 2 times a week if it's necessary.  I will write more on the right way to clean your face on a new blog. For now let's leave it there.

4. Sleep On Your Back: Different people have different sleeping positions. I for instance love sleeping on my tummy. If you belong to this group then you have got some work to do. Sleeping face down is not such a good news for your skin if you have a problem prone skin.

We usually apply a lot of products on our hair which are not necessarily good for the skin. When we sleep on our pillow, these chemicals tend to remain on our pillow so when you sleep on your tummy , your face picks up all these harsh chemicals. Imagine leaving such chemicals on your face overnight and doing it everyday.  Most of us don't realise this because if we do, we would change it.

How to change it; learn how to sleep on your back. Tough one I agree because sometimes you might go to bed on your back just to wake up in the morning to see you are lying on your tummy. Don't worry, I've been there so I have a solution for that.
Get yourself a beauty pillow. I will paste a picture of what a beauty pillow looks like. You don't have to spend a lot of money doing this. I made my beauty pillow myself using an old big pillow that nobody really uses. What the beauty pillow does is, it minimises the chances of you turning back on your tummy when you are  in deep sleep.  Make sure the pillow is firm but soft enough to give you the comfort.  I usually place my beauty pillow on my normal pillow. This keeps my head higher thereby stopping your face from looking swollen or puffy in the morning (physiology).

Another trick is keeping a clean piece of cloth beside your bed which you could always place on your pillow if you can't stop lying on your face.

The third trick is to make sure you cover your hair with a clean material or cap you can comfortably sleep in. That way, your hair wouldn't come in contact with your pillow. Remember, if you use a hair net, your hair is not fully covered so it could still contaminate your pillow. If you are going for a scarf or a hair cap, make sure it is clean and that your hair is fully covered up.

The fourth trick is unrealistic but I will still mention it. Change your pillow cases everyday. 

5. Love your skin: I will make this one short. If you love someone, you wouldn't want to hurt that person. same way, if you love your skin , you wouldn't hurt your skin.

Don't rough handle your skin, pamper it. Be mindful of products you use on your skin.  I know some of us are not in the habit  of reading but please form the habit of reading the ingredients on what ever product you are putting on your skin.

I am sure we are all mindful of everything that goes into our mouth.  You should be that cautious with your skin. Remember , things you put on your skin could get into your bloodstream just like the things you eat. 

So please READ! Know what those weird sounding  ingredients in your body cream mean. Thanks to Google,  you don't need to study chemistry to know what those substances are neither do you need to study medicine to know their health consequences. 

I know all these tips might sound very well far fetched but believe me, all you need to do is try them first, you have nothing to loose.  Everything I write about are things I have implemented or maybe have tried to. We are not born knowing these things,  we learn them. I am still learning them so just join the class and learn with me.