See the statement on many beauty products: “It will rejuvenate your skin!” It’s a tempting statement. Take all the wear and tear of yesterday and magically transform it into healthy new cells today? Yes please. Many of these products and approaches don’t work because what is disguised as “rejuvenating” is in reality only a smokescreen.
Your skin is “getting younger” all the time by constantly creating new cells to replace old ones that have been exposed to stressors. In fact, this amazing process of rejuvenation happens every 27 days. However, there is scientific evidence for the ways you can provide your body with the tools it needs to heal itself and keep your skin cells glowing and healthy for longer.
Here are five ways to harness the rejuvenating power of your body:
Enter the REM cycle.
Scientists have known for years that sleep is an essential part of the overall rejuvenation of the body: When you enter the REM cycle, cells throughout the body, including the skin cells, are able to repair and regenerate themselves.
When you sleep, your body releases certain hormones that have many beauty benefits. In particular, melatonin. “Melatonin is critically important to your skin and plays an important role in repairing the skin against environmental exposure, UV rays, stressors, pollution, etc.” says dermatologist Keira Barr , MD, certified by the Board of Directors. do not generate this melatonin and your skin will not repair itself.
Scientists recently discovered that this nocturnal rejuvenation process is especially important for the production and repair of collagen. When we enter the REM cycle, our body naturally repairs the skins’s collagen layer. Basically, whatever your collagen has absorbed during the day – sun, pollution, inflammatory processes – your body restores them with the help of these “helper” collagen fibers.
Take appropriate beauty-enhancing supplement.
If beauty begins at the cellular level, which we think it does, then you have to give your skin cells every possible tool to rejuvenate from the inside out. CoQ10, for example, is an antioxidant. It is present in every human cell and concentrated in the mitochondria as it’s needed for cellular energy production and rejuvenation. And when you take the most bioavailable form of CoQ10, ubiquinol, it’s been clinically proven to increase natural CoQ10 levels and reduce oxidative stress.
CoQ10 supports the elasticity and smoothness of the skin by fighting against wrinkles and also protects against UV exposure.
Astaxanthin is another important antioxidant. It protects the skin’s fragile collagen layer. It has also been shown to help reduce fine lines and age spots, as well as promote skin hydration.
Finally, phytoceramides can help rejuvenate the skin barrier, which is vital for the overall function of the skin. in doing so, it can help reduce dryness and wrinkles while dramatically improving skin hydration, elasticity and smoothness.
Use a serum that contains both vitamins C and E.
For the skin, vitamin C continually tops the list of topical dermis recommendations. The antioxidant has been shown to support collagen in two ways: first by promoting collagen production, and second by stabilizing the collagen that the skin already has.This means that your skin is able to rebuild its internal structure with collagen and keep it longer. What you might not realize is that topical use of vitamin C is most effective when combined with vitamin E.
Vitamin C is a water soluble vitamin, while vitamin E is a fat soluble vitamin. When formulated together, vitamin E helps vitamin C better penetrate the lipid layer of skin cells into the water inside the cell, where it can work its antioxidant magic. But that’s not all: Vitamin C is a very unstable antioxidant and loses its power to fight free radicals once a free radical is neutralized.However, vitamin E is actually able to “boost” vitamin C again so that it can continue to fight oxidative stress for longer.
If you can tolerate it, use a topical retinol or an alternative to retinol.
Topical retinols work by increasing the rate at which skin cells reproduce and become depleted. Essentially, it takes that 27 day cycle and shortens it. It helps the skin, making it younger, brighter and healthier.
It also helps those with blemishes, as the increased rate of cell turnover means they are less likely to get stuck in the pores. (This is also why there is a long “adaptation period” for retinol: your skin needs to get used to its new replacement cycle.)
It helps the skin in other ways as well.For years, people believed that retinol made the skin thinner as cells fell off faster, however, research indicates that it actually helps thicken the skin layer over time.
However, it makes the skin more susceptible to photo damage, so be sure to use sunscreen if you are using this active.
It also improves collagen production: “Retinol binds to retinoid receptors in skin cells,” says dermatologist Joshua Zeichner, M.D. This “turns on genes that upregulate collagen production.”
This effect was seen in a small human study in which topical retinols stimulated collagen production in mature skin, helping to reduce the appearance of wrinkles.
Retinol and its alternatives like bakuchiol are not suitable for everyone. For starters, pregnant and breastfeeding women should not use retinol (they can use bakuchiol).
When an area of the body needs repair (i.e. cells in said position, which is why you inject (or use acupuncture or microneedling) a concentrated amount, so that the platelets can concentrate too much on the cells for stressed and aged skin tone improved.
Think about PRP injections.
Of course, this is the most extreme of the recommendations here, but if you really want to help your skin cells perform at their best, platelet rich plasma injections are the most sophisticated add-on treatment available. You may hear “facial injections” and immediately think of fillers or Botox, but these injections are quite natural as they come from your own blood. A vial of your own blood is drawn, placed in a machine called a centrifuge, which separates the platelets from the rest of the blood cells (white and red). The platelets, which contain growth factors, are responsible for recovering in the body.
To naturally rejuvenate skin, an area of the body needs repair (i.e. cells in this position which is why you inject (or use acupuncture or microneedling) a concentrated amount, so that the platelets can hyper-concentrate on the cells of the stressed and aged skin. The result is skin that heals better on its own, with smoother lines, smoother texture and better tone.