How to Look Younger – 15 Ways to Look Young and Feel Youthful
1. Load Up on Antioxidants
Antioxidants fight against inflammation and free radical damage in the body. They are your best friends when it comes to anti-ageing. If you’d like to protect yourself from lifestyle diseases like cancer and diabetes, then adding antioxidant-rich foods will help.
2. Stay Hydrated
Dehydration not only makes your skin look wrinkly and saggy, but it also makes you look older. Make sure you drink plenty of water – at least 3 to 4 litres a day. Water flushes out the harmful toxins from your body and keeps your internal organs working optimally.
\It also nourishes your skin and adds to that flawless glow everybody wants. Besides hydrating skin cells, it improves blood circulation too. Wondering how to look younger naturally at home? Drink more water.
3. Exercise Everyday
In today’s world, we’re all hooked to our smartphones and tablets – slouching, sitting with poor posture, and leaning our neck forward to fix our gazes at the screen. As we’re leading busier lives, we end up neglecting ourselves in the process. We know that exercising is good for longevity and good health – but how many of us actually pay any heed to it?
Well, if you want to look younger by face- you have to exercise. And you don’t have to be an athlete or a sports buff to avail the benefits. Start small by walking every day and going on leisurely strolls. Hang out with your friends and sign up for yoga or dance classes. If you’ve got knee or joint issues, you can do low-impact workouts and work your way up from there until your condition improves.
What’s the best exercise to lose weight and look younger? It’s the kind that makes you forget it’s a workout by making it tons of fun.
4. Eat More Fruits and Vegetables
Although organic grass-fed meats should be in your kitchen for your nonvegetarian requirements, you shouldn’t skimp out on the fruits and vegetables. Fruits and veggies alkalize your body and give your liver a nice detox. In Chinese medicine, they say that the state of your liver and various internal organs reflects your health on the outside. And what better way to detox than by eating clean and green? Foods to look younger include cacao powder, olives, avocados, pomegranates, leafy greens, and wheatgrass powder.
5. Don’t Use Shampoo or Strong Cleansers Everyday
We get that using hair cleansers and shampoo is a fad these days but if you overuse them, you’ll be stripping your hair of useful chemicals. To make sure your pH levels are balanced and to get that gorgeous bounce and shine, limit your use of haircare products to two or three times a week.
6. Get Creative
There’s a saying that if you don’t mentally feel young, you’re not going to look young on the outside down the years. The best way to combat that is by doing something creative.
We mean theatre and drama, acting, drawing and painting or music – literally, any activity that gets your creative juices flowing and builds up the white matter in your brain. Next time you think, “How do I look younger?”, you know the answer.
7. Check Your Posture
As we grow older, we have a tendency to hunch or experience what we call “a hunched posture”. This not only makes us look old but gives us a lot of pain too. Doing posture exercises, sleeping on a flat surface without a pillow, and taking care of your spinal health are fantastic ways to keep this in check.
8. Get Some Sleep
Sleep deprivation and insomnia are two things that equate to dark spots, wrinkles under your eyes, and saggy skin. You just won’t look your best when you don’t get enough sleep and it’ll show up in your performance and everyday life. Getting adequate sleep will not only rejuvenate you but make you look younger too.
Because looking young is also about being vitalized and brimming with energy. Researchers have discovered that cherry juice and any naturally-occurring melatonin-rich foods put you off to sleep easily.
9. Cut Down on Stress
Stress releases a burst of hormones like adrenaline and cortisol which make your heart beat faster and raise your blood pressure. Your organs end up working harder than they should, making you tired, weary, and yes- older. We realize everybody gets stressed these days but it has more to do with how you live and what habits you have.
Meditation triggers the relaxation response inside your body and prevents ageing of the brain. Just fitting in 10 to 20 minutes a day of that happy me-time will do wonders for your stress levels. And if you don’t know how to meditate or can’t sit still, go for qi gong or yoga Classes. They usually feature standing and moving meditation.
10. Enjoy Sex and Cuddling
Passion is an emotion that gets you up and running, making you feel light-years young. According to Gail Sheehy, author of Sex and the Seasoned Woman: “It’s the central motivation of all human activity.”
Touching your partner releases feel-good hormones like oxytocin which are known to beat stress and depression. And having sex gives you that post-coital afterglow as the blood rushes to your skin, making your face glow and seem younger. And it’s also a good excuse for a workout, so don’t be shy and ask your partner to get more active with you during the night.
11. Treat Yourself to a Glass of Red Wine
Researchers have found that red wine has a compound known as resveratrol which has been proven to possess anti-ageing properties. Going for that glass of red wine at the end of every night is actually good for you.
Red wine has been shown to not only reduce mortality rates by 34% but to also promote longevity and youthfulness.
12. Play Brain Games
Playing brain games or doing mental aerobic exercises have been shown to rewire your brain, improve your memory and get cognitive benefits that last as long as 5 years. There are tons of apps like Luminosity and Elevate but if you want cheaper options or more free stuff, you can peer into the crossword or sudoku sections in your local newspapers.
Besides that, any activity that exercises your left and right-brain hemispheres like chess, challenging puzzles, Rubik’s cube, games that test your logic, spatial awareness, colour sensitivity, and creativity are good for you. You can just pop in a season of Brain Games on your TV and follow the episodes for ideas.
13. Use Supplements for Your Skin
Any skin creams which contain the compound ‘retinol’ work against beating wrinkles and smoothening your skin. The old skin peels out gently and gets replaced with newer, supple, and more beautiful skin. Foods or supplements that contain alpha lipoic acid (ALA) like flaxseeds, sunflower seeds, and chia seeds are known to get you anti-ageing benefits.
Take care of your skin by using skin creams and lotions containing retinol and don’t forget to eat ALA-rich foods or supplements.
14. Meet New People and Travel
Meeting new people, getting outside the house, and travelling the world will bring you fresh perspectives and an appreciation for lifestyle and culture. When you immerse yourself in new experiences and new people, you’ll truly feel alive.
And that’s one of the secret ingredients to feeling young – living in the moment and enjoying it to the fullest.
15. Make Healthy Habits
At the end of the day, your habits turn you into the person you are. If you are serious about looking younger in your later years, you will have to put in the work. No shortcuts.
And how long does it take to make new habits? Science says 21 days but we say don’t believe you’ve come to grips with it until you hit at least 6 months. Yes, it’s hard but it’s worth it, which is why we recommend it.
You don’t have to go monk-mode and practice these tips religiously to look younger. But yes, start early and with the small stuff like exercise, food, and sleep. Build up the other habits gradually and before you know it, you’ll experience the snowball effect and look years younger in the future.