- Daily lifestyle habits can cause premature aging, leading to wrinkles and dark spots on your skin.
- Not wearing sunscreen, being dehydrated, and staying inactive can impact your skin.
- Many habits are also interconnected, so it’s good to look at your overall health.
If you don’t have the budget for regular Botox or expensive treatments, there’s a cheaper route to youthful-looking skin: tweaking your lifestyle habits.
It’s a little more involved than simply going to a one-off appointment. “We always want to assume there’s this magic bullet,” Marjorie Cohn, a registered dietitian and founding clinical director of the online nutrition therapy service Berry Street, told Business Insider.
In reality, habits are often interconnected: a lack of exercise can make it harder to fall asleep; poor sleep causes spikes in sugar cravings; all three can degrade the collagen production needed for bouncy, vibrant skin.
Everyday choices you make can speed up the aging process and make you look older. While changing up your skincare routine or diet can feel less impactful than a chemical peel, those micro-habits add up in the long run.
Plus, if you’re going to splurge on an LED mask, you may as well start with the best possible skin.
Not putting on enough sunscreen
Of all the anti-aging skincare products on the market, sunscreen has the most evidence behind it, Carmen Castilla, a board-certified dermatologist in New York, told BI.
Without sunscreen, the sun’s UV rays cause oxidative damage to the skin, “which impairs collagen production and actually destroys the collagen that you have,” Castilla said. Because collagen is the supportive structure of the skin, your skin ages faster from unprotected sun exposure.
At minimum, you should be wearing an SPF 30 formula every day and reapplying every two hours if you’re in the sun. However, how much you use is also crucial.
If your body is exposed to the sun, the general recommendation is one ounce of sunscreen. Most sunscreen bottles are between 6 to 8 ounces, meaning “you should be really going through your sunscreen bottles very quickly,” Castilla said. “But most people have a sunscreen bottle that lasts the whole summer.”
Being dehydrated
If you have crepe-like creases, they might not be wrinkles at all. More likely, they’re dehydration lines.
“If your skin is not adequately hydrated, those skin cells shrink a little bit and you’re going to see increased dullness, more fine lines,” Castilla said.
Beyond drinking enough water and cutting down on sugary drinks and coffee, the key to keeping your skin hydrated is to use moisturizer.
Drinking too much alcohol
Alcohol is another big dehydrator, Cohn said, contributing to facial puffiness. It also offsets other nutrients that are key to healthy skin.
Alcohol can’t be stored in the body the way we store fat or carbohydrates. “Your body actually has to metabolize it in the moment, so it’s really hard on your liver,” Cohn said. Drinking too much reduces your liver’s ability to filter toxins and collect nutrients, which will eventually show up on your skin.
To avoid high alcohol consumption, health experts recommend limiting yourself to about 1 to 2 drinks a day and to never exceed three in a day.
Neglecting sleep
Sleep is when the body restores itself. Increased blood flow and nutrients help the skin repair collagen and any sun damage from the day, Castilla said.
Good sleep also balances hormone levels, such as lowering cortisol, the stress hormone that also contributes to faster aging, Cohn said.
Other hormones, such as ghrelin or the “hunger hormone,” spike when you don’t sleep enough. It can increase cravings for more sugary or ultra-processed foods, which have cascading effects on the body — including the skin.
Eating too many sugary or charred foods
Spikes in blood sugar — caused by eating sugary foods or processed carbohydrates like white bread — make it harder for your body to produce more collagen, Castilla said.
Other, less-talked-about foods that cause quicker skin aging are foods cooked in high heat, such as charred meat. That char has a type of free radical — an unstable molecule that damages skin cells and stiffens collagen. Castilla recommended lower-heat cooking methods, like steaming or boiling.
Not getting the right nutrients
The other problem with eating ultra-processed foods is that they can lack the nutrients needed for healthy skin, Cohn said.
For example, electrolytes like potassium and sodium found in fruit improve hydration. Electrolyte drinks, meanwhile, often have added sugars that can spike your blood sugar.
Protein, zinc, and vitamin C are all essential for boosting collagen production, which declines as we age. While ultra-processed foods can have some vitamins and protein, eating lots of UPFs can also lead to health issues.
“If you’re deficient in any of those, it’s going to be much harder for your body to produce new, strong collagen,” Castilla said.
Not working out
On top of collagen, the dermis (inner layer of your skin) also thins as we age. “That’s one of the reasons why we see a lot of wrinkling,” Castilla said. Exercise, which increases blood flow, can thicken it. The blood flow from exercise also improves circulation, which helps build collagen and elastin, Cohn said.
It also helps reduce stress levels and improve sleep quality, both of which positively impact your skin, she said.
An inconsistent skincare routine
Almost all anti-aging skincare products take a while to be effective, as they work to generate new proteins. It can take three months to see visible results, Castilla said.
A consistent morning and nighttime skincare routine doesn’t need many products to prevent premature aging. You mainly want to remove makeup (as pollutants trapped in the skin can damage your microbiome), put on sunscreen, and apply moisturizer.
To smooth your skin texture or get rid of dark spots, you can use retinol and vitamin C serum, which both increase collagen production.
Smoking or vaping
Broadly, smoking (be it cigarettes or vapes) reduces oxygen and nutrient delivery in other organs, including your skin, Cohn said. This can show up as blood vessel damage, wrinkling, or dehydration.
Weed isn’t necessarily much better, she added. “When you’re inhaling something, whether it’s marijuana or cigarette smoke, you are trading oxygen for that other vapor,” she said. “Those cells are going to die a little bit quicker.”
If you’re going to quit one habit to slow down your aging, this is it.
