One thing is true – wrinkles are inevitable and nobody can avoid them. Those are called age-related wrinkles and we cannot stop them but slower the process. This article will cover stress related wrinkles and how to fight them or prevent them. Age related wrinkles are connected to decrease in collagen in our skin due to aging. Read more about Anti-Aging tips in our previous article here. 

Long term stress on the other hand can create a different king of wrinkles. We might not be aware of it but this is in most cases connected to psychological stress or environmental stress. The Coronavirus outbreak is one of the reasons that we’re under stress as an example. Other stress factors can be also pollution, too much sun exposure etc.  While being stressed we often forget about the basic stuff and make our body suffer - not enough sleep, bad nutrition or not enough exercise.

This will affect our health first but will show on our skin as swell, which will affect the whole body but will pop up usually on our facial region (specially the forehead and mouth/nose region). Simple explanation to this is that our telomeres are being shortened and they cannot be replicated due to stress. This means that individuals who suffer from more stress (mental, depression etc.) will have shorter telomeres and will be prone to more wrinkles. 

STEPS TO PREVENT STRESS WRINKLES

1.) Stress relief routine 

We can split this step into two groups: short and long-term stress relief. Short term can be performed anywhere and takes less time to practice. This includes meditation, muscle relaxation and focused breathing. While this is important, stress wrinkles can be minimized by long term stress relief. This mainly includes:

• Healthy diet
• Time for leisure activates
• Exercise
• Good quality sleep

Here you can include things like yoga, a positive self-talk habit, listening to your favorite music etc. We will cover those points in details in one of our next articles.

2.) Exfoliate

Exfoliating is great to dissolve and peel off dead skin cells that can cause deeper looking wrinkles. Try our Fresh Papaya Peeling for a daily gentle exfoliation.

3.) Vitamin C

While exfoliating prevents from deeper wrinkles, vitamin C reduces damage caused by free radicals. 

4.) Retinol

While we loose collagen during our stress periods, it’s important to replenish it again. Retinol improves the skin cell turnover and impacts the collagen productions. This can be done either by a good nutrition or by skin care products.

5.) Applying a sunscreen daily

We cannot stress this enough that using sunscreen daily is a must. This applies specially at the facial area with a product that has an SPF of at least 30. Don’t forget that this is important also in the winter months!