Today I’m going to list the 4 primary causes of wrinkles… As well as the best, easiest, and fastest solutions for reducing wrinkles and possibly preventing them.
I know reducing wrinkles will make you look younger and feel more confident. However, wrinkles and accelerated skin aging also mean that internally you’re not as healthy as you could be.
So improving your wrinkles will make you look younger and could allow you to live longer too.
What Causes Wrinkles?
So, let’s start with the 4 primary causes of wrinkles and skin aging.
I know you may want to jump ahead to the anti-wrinkle solutions in this article. But, the solutions won’t work well if you don’t fix some of the causes of wrinkles.
Intrinsic Aging (Natural Aging)
- Loss of Collagen and Elastin: As we age, the production of collagen and elastin, which provide structure and elasticity to the skin, decreases.
- Slower Cell Turnover: The rate at which new skin cells are generated and old ones are shed slows down, making the skin appear dull and thin… thus, revealing the fine lines, which eventually turn into deeper wrinkles.
- Decreased Fat: Reduction in the fat layers beneath the skin leads to sagging and more pronounced wrinkles. There’s less fullness. Think of it like a grape that slowly turns into a raisin.
- Genetics: Darker, thicker skin such as African American will wrinkle less, than a pale person with red hair, who has less melanin and thinner skin.
Extrinsic Aging (Environmental Factors)
- Sun Exposure: Ultraviolet (UV) rays from the sun break down collagen fibers and cause the formation of free radicals, which damage skin cells. This is one of the biggest causes of wrinkles.
- Pollution: Exposure to pollutants can cause oxidative stress, which accelerates skin aging.
- Drugs: Popular over-the-counter drugs such as cigarettes and alcohol, can cause damage to collagen and elastin, while also depleting important nutrients such as Vitamin C, which speed up aging.
- Poor Nutrition: A diet lacking essential nutrients can weaken the skin’s ability to repair and regenerate. This means highly processed foods, sugars, and seed oils. These foods are all inflammatory, which is a major cause of wrinkles – which I’ll talk about in a minute.
- Repeated Facial Expressions: Over time, repeated movements like smiling, frowning, or squinting create grooves beneath the skin’s surface, which eventually become permanent.
Lifestyle Factors
- Lack of Sleep: Poor sleep quality can prevent the skin from repairing itself effectively, leading to early aging. Remember, when you sleep, your body is healing and repairing. It’s creating all of your youth hormones.
- Stress: Chronic stress increases cortisol levels, which can break down collagen and elastin. Stress also increases blood sugar, which is inflammatory and is linked to wrinkles.
- Dehydration: Inadequate hydration can make the skin look dry and more prone to wrinkling. Most people don’t drink enough water. Additionally, your skin can also be dehydrated from the outside – such as living in a hot, dry climate, versus a topical and humid climate.
Hormonal Factors
Finally and most importantly, we have hormonal factors:
- Insulin: High blood sugar and insulin levels, oxidize the entire body, it’s acidic and inflammatory.
- Growth Hormones: Lower growth hormone due to aging and poor sleep, decreases collagen production, and protein synthesis, and accelerates aging.
- Cortisol: As stated earlier, chronic stress and elevated cortisol and adrenal hormones accelerate aging, increase blood sugar, and cause inflammation.
- Sex Hormones: A decrease in sex hormones such as testosterone and estrogen, also accelerate aging and cause faster wrinkling. It also causes a decrease in fluid retention, which causes dehydration… similar to the grape-to-raisin analogy I gave earlier.
Summary Of Causes
When it comes to the causes of wrinkles, genetics aside, anything that’s going to decrease healing and collagen while increasing inflammation is going to increase wrinkles.
Solutions To Reduce & Prevent Wrinkles
Now we can move on to the solutions to help reduce fine lines and wrinkles and hopefully prevent them as we get older.
Remember, the following solutions can’t undo the causes I’ve just mentioned.
Hence, don’t expect to prevent wrinkles if you’re going to be in the sun for hours every day, getting a dark, deep tan.
Let’s reduce some of the causes and add in some simple, easy-to-implement solutions.
Topicals
Most topicals don’t work. It’s a huge market full of lies. The best and most effective are:
- Retinoid Creams: They stimulate skin cell turnover and boost collagen production. There are dozens of brands that have retinol, select one that you like. However, if you can get a prescription for Retin-A, that would be ideal. It works faster and it’s cheaper.
- Vitamin C + Hyaluronic Acid: This would be in a topical Serum. Here is a link to the one I use. Both build collagen and increase fullness in the skin reducing fine lines and wrinkles.
- Sun Block: You need to get in the habit of applying sunblock every day – especially to your face. I also suggest the top of your hands, neck, and upper chest. If you’re bald, make sure you put on your scalp as well. Or, just wear a hat.
- Moisturize: It’s also important to moisturize daily. I try to do it morning and evening. You can use lotions, creams, or light oils if you don’t break out into pimples. If the moisturizer contains ceramides, that’s even better because they keep the skin barrier intact and hydrated.
Supplements
As with most things that you hear about, don’t work. However, there are specific supplements that are proven to help your skin:
- Collagen Peptides: Make sure to use the hydrolyzed Bovine Peptide. It’s the best one that’s clinically shown to work. I use this one. You need a minimum of 15 GRAMS daily. I take 30 grams. That’s why it has to be the powder form. Taking it in a pill form is a waste and super expensive because you have to take a handful of pills to get the 15 grams.
- Hyaluronic Acid: It helps the skin retain moisture and plumpness. Take 200 mg daily. I take 400 mg. Here is the one I use.
- Vitamin C: Vitamin C is needed to form collagen. In fact, taking collagen powder without Vitamin C is almost a waste of time. I suggest taking at least 500 mg to 1000 mg of vitamin C daily. I personally take over 3000 mg daily because it has so many other health benefits.
These 3 supplements are specific for the skin.
However, there are 3 bigger and more powerful causes of winkles, that need to be fixed.
- Lower Inflammation: Inflammation is horrible for your body, especially your skin and hair. There are a few herbs that support healthy inflammation, such as Turmeric, Ginger, Pine Bark and a few others. I use Inflame & Pain Relief because it contains the best clinically researched ingredients for reducing inflammation.
- Lower Blood Sugar: High blood sugar is horrible for the body and one reason is that sugar eats away at everything, it’s like acid. High blood sugar also causes inflammation, which I just stated is a cause of wrinkles, hair loss, and pimples. There are a handful of specific ingredients that help lower blood sugar. I use Blood Sugar Optimizer since it contains all of the clinically researched ones.
- Lower Stress & Cortisol: As stated earlier, high stress & cortisol, accelerate aging, and increase blood sugar and inflammation. Controlling stress can be hard for most of us. That’s why I take specific herbs that help lower stress hormones. The primary ones that are clinically researched are all found in Stress & Cortisol Relief.
Life Style
And none of this matters if you don’t try to live a healthy lifestyle. We all know this. My suggestion would be to make improvements in:
- Diet: Eat as natural as possible. This means a very low-processed diet. Such as vegetables, fruits, legumes, yams, healthy protein and fats – such as fish oil and extra virgin olive oil.
- Exercise: At the very least, just walk 30 minutes daily. This can be 10-15 minutes, 2-3x daily – such as first thing in the morning or after meals. That’s all I do.
- Stress Management: Again, this can be hard. But the most important thing is getting good sleep.
Summary
Remember, healthy skin and skin aging make you look younger… And it means your body is also healthier inside. Remember, your skin is the biggest organ in your body.
Please don’t passively listen and do nothing. Take action on what you’ve learned today, even if it’s just ONE small improvement.
Don’t forget to scroll down and look at all the important resources I mentioned in the video, below in the description area.