One of the many features of getting older is wanting to look younger. We’re very rarely entirely satisfied with our lots in life and it’s in all of our natures to strive for that little bit more. In many respects this is fantastic; it has made us into the planet dominating force we are as a race. However, individually it can make us quite easily depressed. It’s very rare that we achieve everything we could possibly want in life and even the people that we view as ‘having it all’ tend to want something more. That said, there’s plenty you can do to look and feel much younger for much longer and it doesn’t have to cost you the world to do so. Your skin is the part of your body that people see most. It has to be tough to protect us from the elements and as we get older this protection starts to take its toll. There are all sorts of things that you can do to make sure your skin says soft and healthy; it doesn’t have to look its age. Getting into the habit of regularly exfoliating, moisturising and cleansing your skin will help to keep it looking its best. Trying getting yourself onto an anti-inflammatory diet as this has been known to be a great help to youthful looking skin. Replace your caffeinated beverages with peppermint tea and you’ll be delighted with the effects! Your hair is another part of your body which people are going to see a lot of. As we get older each individual strand of hair will start to grow in much more wiry, making us look older. If you see a stylist or hairdresser and change your hairstyle to match your new hair type you should be able to counter this. There are also all sorts of hair nutrition products which you can use to keep your hair looking and feeling glossier for longer!

Unfortunately, at some point in your life your skin will lose its bounce and the folds will begin to set. This is an inevitable process that comes with ageing, but that hasn’t stopped beauty wellness experts from trying to delay the process nonetheless. You have several anti-ageing options if you want to maintain a youthful look, and advancements in dermal fillers, laser skin resurfacing, and acne treatments continue to make aesthetic medicine safer, less painful, and more effective than ever before. This is according to the spring issue of New Beauty magazine, but Dr Simon Ourian, Medical Director of Epione Beverly Hills, is sceptical about their effectiveness. ‘I like to think that I work on the cutting edge of aesthetic medicine,’ he said. ‘But in truth I will always wait for sufficient data to be collected before I introduce new devices or products to my patients. The innovations discussed in the article are interesting but I’m not ready to add them to my practice just yet.’ One of the new devices discussed in the article is a new kind of dermal filler, which uses pressure driven by CO2. Until now, dermal fillers have only been administered with needle injections, but this can make you more susceptible to swelling and bruising. The new dermal filler, on the other hand, allows your doctor to easily control the flow of the treatment and more accurately place fillers. But the anti-ageing wellbeing boosters don’t stop there. One device now on the market allows your doctor to determine your skin type and how your skin will respond to laser treatment. This information will enable your doctor to calibrate the laser to the proper parameters, which will ensure safe and successful treatments. The device minimised your risk for complications and improves the efficacy of the treatments by factoring in your skin tone, melanin levels, and sun exposure. If lasers and fillers aren’t your cup of tea, then how about a new anti-acne pill? Manufacturers say the pill eliminates your need to eat fatty foods and is easily absorbed by your body. However, the pill is only to be used in cases of extreme acne and is currently only available via prescription.  Dr Ourian commented, ‘I’m glad to see that the article made note of that the anti-acne pill may have significant side effects. It’s important for patients to know these risks before they start any drug regimen.’

You could end up spending a fortune on anti-ageing products, but is there a simpler way to maintain your youthful look? It turns out, there are certain foods that aren’t only bad for your wellness, but take their toll on your appearance and so simply avoiding certain foods can help you to combat the signs of ageing from the inside out. Firstly, sugar is a major culprit in making you look older. When you have excess levels of sugar in your body, the sugar attaches to your collagen which makes your skin look stiff and inflexible. In her book, Diet Myths Busted; Food Facts Not Nutrition Fiction, Ann A. Rosenstein writes, ‘losing this elastic resilience of young skin will give the skin deep wrinkles and make it look old.’ She adds that trans fats work much the same way, making your skin look old because ‘trans fats clog and stiffen the arteries and smaller blood vessels.’ Salt is another dietary ingredient which ages you. Salt dehydrates your body, which makes you fatigued and looking more tired and worn out. Excess levels of salt also contribute to kidney disease, high blood pressure and interfere with bone metabolism, so it’s a big no-no for your overall wellbeing. Another dehydrating aspect of your diet is coffee, as caffeine also makes your look and feel tired and worn out. According to The Dr Oz Show, consuming too much alcohol also dehydrates your body, leading to face full of wrinkles, redness and puffiness, with a lot less collagen. If you’re thinking you can simply replace your usual with an energy drink, think again. Dr Oz asserts that energy drinks damage the enamel in your teeth eight times more than fizzy drinks do, and this makes your teeth look yellow and unhealthy. When it comes to fizzy drinks, they tend to dehydrate your body and make you look older as they are high in sugar. GalTime.com advises water as the best replacement for fizzy drinks, energy drinks, caffeine and alcohol: ‘A good rule of thumb is to drink half your body weight in ounces. So if you weight 130 lbs, you need 65 ounces of water a day – just over eight cups.’ The website also notes that fried food contributes to collagen break down in your skin, which makes you look wrinkled and worn out.

When it comes to foods that take their toll on your wellbeing, as well as your ageing process, one underlying theme seems to be that they dehydrate your skin. Sure, you could amp up your intake of water – which is certainly no bad thing for your wellness – but if you really want to make your anti-ageing regime the best it can be, there are certain foods you need to avoid. With dehydration, the number one culprit to turn on is salt. Anyone who’s ever eaten a bag of crisps will tell you that you get thirsty afterwards, and salt is the reason why. The dehydration that salt causes your body causes you to become fatigued, and this, in turn, makes you look tired and worn out. As an added bonus, consuming salt excessively can cause you to develop high blood pressure and kidney disease, and it also interferes with your bone metabolism. Bottom line: don’t pass the salt. Another well-known dehydrating ingredient is caffeine. Sure, your morning cup of coffee gets you going in the morning – and there’s nothing wrong with that – but the average Brit drinks four cups of something caffeinated every day, and that’s where the danger of looking fatigued rears its ugly head, as well as yellowing your teeth. The same goes for caffeinated energy drinks and, according to the Dr. Oz Show, energy drinks damage the enamel in your teeth eight times more than fizzy drinks do, which makes your teeth look yellow and unhealthy, meaning that you look older. While we’re mentioning fizzy drinks, these too tend to dehydrate the body, as they are high in sugar. The Dr. Oz show adds that consuming too much alcohol dehydrates your body, and so that vodka and coke is a cocktail for anti-ageing disaster! However, the ageing properties of alcohol don’t stop dehydration, but Dr. Oz explains that your favourite tipple also causes wrinkles, loss of collagen, redness and puffiness – lovely! If in doubt, avoid things that are high in salt, sugar, caffeine or alcohol, but if you do partake then GalTime.com recommends plenty of water: ‘A good rule of thumb is to drink half your body weight in ounces. So if you weight 130 lbs, you need 65 ounces of water a day – just over eight cups.’