Looking and feeling your best means getting the right amount of exercise so you can trigger those powerful physiological and biochemical processes in your body. Exercise calms you so you can sleep better, and in turn, allow your body to process your blood sugar most effectively for a healthier you. In fact, you can expect a variety of good things to happen when regularly engaging in a healthy workout!
How Exercise Boosts Your Skin Health
- Smoother, more beautiful skin: Whenever you take the time to break a sweat by walking a few miles around your neighborhood or working out on an elliptical trainer, your skin benefits. Sweating is like getting a mini-facial; it causes your pores to dilate as your sweat washes out trapped dirt and oil to help clear up acne.
- Reduces inflammation in the body and regulates hormones that benefit the skin: Exercise causes the tiny arteries in your skin to open up. It means more blood can get to the skin’s surface, where it delivers nutrients your skin needs to repair environmental damage. The result? Your skin’s collagen production gets a boost and helps prevent wrinkles.
- Increased height: When you regularly perform exercises that simultaneously stretch and strengthen your muscles (think Pilates or yoga), you actually begin eliminating poor posture from hunching. Straightening your spine elongates your height as your muscles go back into balance. If you struggle with a swayed back, planks can strengthen your core while hunched shoulders can be relieved by resistance with bands and lifting free weights.
- Increased immunity and better detoxification: Consistent exercise gives your immune system a boost as it gets the body to produce more white blood cells. It helps protect against harmful bacteria, germs, and viruses so that even your wounds can heal faster! As your lymph system detoxes and gets rid of waste, you look less puffy. When it comes to detoxification, anything from Bikram yoga to cycling to weightlifting can do the trick!
- More restful sleep: Performing daily exercises boost your body’s ability to sleep longer and more restfully. Exercise takes the wind out of chronic stress, which normally creates the stress hormone, cortisol, around the clock. As you exercise, cortisol production levels out so you can sleep more deeply and wake up looking refreshed and ready for your day. Exercise helps your body more efficiently repair tissue while you sleep.
- Reduces visceral fat: When you lose the extra fat layered deep within the body, your overall looks and vitality tend to improve. Excess visceral fat causes low-grade inflammation in the body, which can lead to heart disease, type 2 diabetes, colon or breast cancer, and even dementia. Excess fat also interferes with proper hormone balance that would otherwise impact the skin and hair. Consistent exercise helps produce mitochondria for optimal metabolism function and moves fatty acids into the cells that burn energy.
- Healthier sex hormones: Having a fit body does not just improve how you look but also helps you feel more attractive as it balances your body’s sex hormones. The result is better-looking muscle tone, skin and hair. Along with endorphins, exercise has the power to naturally increase sex hormones (like testosterone and human growth hormone, HGH), which, incidentally, is a popularly sought-after injection to increase one’s appearance!
Call for a Consultation
As you can see, a healthier facial appearance and body can be achieved with regular exercise. It increases your sleep quality and quantity for a more rested, radiant you. If you still need help boosting your skin health and image, our plastic surgery team has transformative options to help give you the appearance you have always wanted. We invite you to reach out to our team with your questions and concerns, and get ready to glow with vibrant health!