Lesson 2: Simple Things for Great Skin Care: Food, Water, sleep Exercise

Here we are onto lesson 2, where we going to be discussing about natural skincare. and lifestyle habits.

Introduction

Before we even go down the route of using natural skincare products, it’s absolutely important that basic lifestyle practices need to be followed.  If you have a healthy life style, automatically you would have good skin.  This cuts down the need for the amount of products you need to utilize on your skin.  When in doubt, always go for the natural.  Your body is programmed to live in-tune with nature.  So what is natural should be the status quo at all times.

The basic lifestyle practice to having a healthy skin is based on the Quadrant Phenomenon.  Let us explain what we mean by the Quadrant Phenomenon.

These are based on the four principles of sleep, water, food and exercise.  Your body is naturally built in such a way where sleep is core to healthy lifestyle.  

Sleep

Research has solidified the relationship between inadequate sleep and a number of disorders such as including hypertension,obesity and type-2 diabetes, impaired immune functioning, cardiovascular disease and arrhythmias, mood disorders, neurodegeneration, dementia, depression and loneliness. David F. Dinges, PhD, is a Professor and Chief of the Division of Sleep and Chronobiology in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. 

He says “We know for sure that sleep serves multiple functions.  Nature tends to be very parsimonious in that it often uses a single system or biology in multiple ways to optimize the functioning of an organism. We know, for example, that sleep is critical for waking cognition—that is, for the ability to think clearly, to be vigilant and alert, and sustain attention. We also know that memories are consolidated during sleep, and that sleep serves a key role in emotional regulation.”1

When you sleep, your body’s metabolism slows down and you go in to a mode of rest.  Your circadian rhythm is based on your time of rest which is a default feature of your body.  This rest via sleep is needed to replenish and re-energize your body.   The recommendation is for you get approximately 8 hours sleep a day.

Insomnia

There are a number of individuals really struggle from insomnia.  We recommend multiple solutions to this problem. 

1. Establish a routine – so you go to bed at the same time every day.
2. De-stress yourself before you go to bed.  That is, you go into a mode of relaxation before going to bed.  You might have been having a really busy day at work, or have a number of school assignments, and have to look after children and family.  You need to slow down from your busy schedule and have some quiet time before you’re actually able to go to bed and have a restful sleep.  
3. Try taking 15 deep breaths – deep inhalations and exhalations.  Stay still, empty your mid from all thoughts and just relax yourself through breathing. 
4. Bathing or showering routine is a great way to relax as well.  Why not let your aching muscles and your tired mind, just rest and feel the warm water caress your skin.  The freshness of the bath will help you relax tremendously.
5. Skin care routine also comes into play for relaxation.  While you’re taking time to slow down, this will be the opportunity to spend some time massing your skin with a body butter, or applying a face mask, going through a cleansing routine and just slowing down your busy life by doing something for yourself.
6. Reading – a lot of people read a book in order to fall asleep.  These days with the increased number of mobile phone usage, a lot of people will tend to use the mobile phones to read.  Please make sure that adequate light is present and you are not relying solely on the mobile screen light.  This is detrimental to your eyes and will work against your relaxation by causing fatigue and bags under your eyes.
7. Drinking a cup of warm milk or water is also helpful to slow down and relax yourself.

Water

Drink and lot of water is the mantra and there is no way out of it.

Your body’s composition is 60 to 75% water.  Thus, water is absolutely integral to not only good looking skin but for your health and well being.  The recommendation is that you intake approximately 8 glasses of water a day.  Each person might have individual tolerance limits to drinking but the fundamental principle is to keep yourself hydrated at all times.

Living an eco-friendly lifestyle is to utilize reusable bottles. So you can fill your water into reusable water bottles and as you go about your day, you can re-fill and replenish the water keeping you hydrated and energized.   A great way to enhance the taste of the water is to drink infused water.  Cucumber, mint, lemon, lime and ginger are fantastic.  They bring a lot of flavor as well as their own nutrients through the infusion.  Avoid carbonated water and keep to natural water as much as possible.

Food

The penultimate of the quadrant is a healthy balanced diet.   This is super important to a healthy glowing skin.   First and foremost, you need to be careful with your sugars as these have immediate and long-term consequences on your health.  You also want to be careful with salt, fat and carbohydrate intake.  Although proteins are great, you cannot only live with proteins so you need to opt for a balanced diet plan. 

You need to plan your meals in such a manner where you have ‘five a day’.  That is, you have 5 of fruits and vegetables a day, with a bit of carbohydrate, protein, sugars and fat so that you have a balanced dietary intake. 

Fibre is key to good digestive health.  Try eating oats and slowly in-build porridge in to your lifestyle.  Never skip breakfast.  You also need to plan out portion sizes so you would need plan out your meals so that you have regular food intake but in smaller quantity.  So instead of eating 3 times a day we recommend that you eat 5-6 times a day. 

Exercise

You can never downplay the role of exercise in your health and skin care routine.  The more you exercise and the more you sweat, your pores are cleansed and your naturally end up with healthier with glowing skin.  The increase in heart rate and muscle spasms, increases the blood flow and demand for oxygen.  Thus the purification process and circulation is greatly enhanced which results in vibrant healthiness, more energy and glowing skin. 

A minimum 20 minutes exercise is a must for everyone.  Ideally swimming or an elliptical cross trainer is good because it is full body exercise.  However, how many of us actually have access to a pool or a cross trainer? So why not try a simple walk around your neighborhood?  Go outside, get some fresh air and you get natural exercise as well.  Free and simple as it comes.  We recommend you stick to a routine to achieve the best results.

Tips for Great SkinCare

Here is our suggestion:

In the next lesson, lesson 3 we shall explore what are the foods that you should be consuming and what combinations are good for a healthy, balanced lifestyle and fantastic skin. 

REFERENCES

1Worley SL. The Extraordinary Importance of Sleep: The Detrimental Effects of Inadequate Sleep on Health and Public Safety Drive an Explosion of Sleep Research. P T. 2018;43(12):758-763.