Want a quick beauty tip? Get more exercise. I bet you never saw that one coming. Yes, apart from improving your health and helping to you feel good, exercise can help you to look good too. Furthermore, it can do so in a number of different ways.
Beauty is not all about expensive creams and lotions and there are certainly safer ways to look good than going under the knife.
Diet is a good example. Some foods, such as salmon and herring, provide omega acids that help moisturize and thicken the skin. Sunflower seeds and sweet potatoes provide skin-nourishing nutrients too.
In fact, there are lots of options that can help you to eat your way to healthier skin but, in this article, I’m going to focus on the beauty benefits exercise provides.
Exercise is one of the best ways to banish blemishes, get a clear complexion, and deter wrinkles. It can even give you healthier hair and it doesn’t have to cost a thing. It can even help you get rid of your chubby cheeks.
Gym membership is only an option, not a necessity. Plenty of women workout at home and pounding the pavement is every bit as beneficial as working up a sweat on $10,000 treadmill.
In fact, it can be better. Weather permitting, jogging can be a good way to work on your tan and get some natural streaks in your hair.
Why Exercise Is Good for Your Hair
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Exercise gets the heart pumping harder and improves circulation to the scalp. This allows the follicles to benefit from an improved supply of nutrients and antioxidants that nourish and protect the hair.
In addition to helping provide healthier looking hair, exercise may also offer protection against hair loss.
Modern-day life can be very hectic. It’s filled with stress and stress is not good.
Stress can damage the health in many ways and it’s been established one of the things stress can do is make you start losing your hair.
In fact, stress is one of the main causes of hair loss. [SOURCE 1]
One of the many good things about exercise is its ability to boost serotonin levels. Serotonin is often called the “feel good” hormone.
Apart from boosting the mood, serotonin also improves the way we respond to stress.
All forms of exercise can be beneficial for the hair, but yoga may be particularly good and that’s not really so surprising.
Inversion postures such as headstand (sirsasana), downward facing dog stretch (adhomukha svanasana), and shoulder stand (sarvangasana) can’t help but send extra blood to the scalp.
How Exercise Benefits Your Skin
Exercise also improves blood flow to the skin.
Apart from providing the dermal tissue with extra nutrients, the blood delivers additional oxygen to provide a healthy-looking post-workout glow.
It’s not just about the good things the blood brings to the skin though. The blood also picks up toxins and carries them away.
Thereby further improving skin health.
Believe it or not, working up a good sweat during exercise is also beneficial for the skin.
Apart from sweating out further toxins, the sweat also helps clear the pores and may wash away tricky bacteria living on the surface of the skin.
In a nutshell, pumping out plenty of sweat, though possibly not very ladylike, is a little like giving your skin a good cleansing session from the inside out.
However, it’s important to remember to thoroughly remove all your makeup before starting to exercise. Its presence will clog the pores, hinder the sweat’s escape, and prevent it from doing its job.
Of course, it’s just as easy to give your skin the sweat treatment while sitting in a sauna.
Unfortunately, that’s not going to provide the additional beauty benefits exercise can deliver. So, if you want to enjoy great looking skin, put on your training shoes and glow, girl.
A Natural Wrinkle Lift
Wrinkles are a natural part of the aging process, but you don’t have to sit down and accept it.
You can get all active and proactive about staying younger-looking for longer instead.
When you exercise, it improves the muscle tone beneath the skin, helping to support it and keep it firm. There’s also a longstanding belief that exercise keeps you young-looking by supporting collagen production.
Research shows high-intensity exercise can also boost human growth hormone (HGH) production rates. HGH is often said to be the body’s internal fountain of youth. [SOURCE 2]
Some celebrities try to turn back the clock by taking dangerous HGH injections. Getting more exercise is a safer and more natural way to go.
Researchers at the University of Ontario have come up with further evidence that suggest exercise has an anti-aging effect.
After successful studies carried out on mice, the researchers conducted a study involving 29 volunteers between the ages of 20 and 84. Half the volunteers exercised three times per week, the rest did not even put in an hour. In all cases, this was the volunteers’ normal routine.
Skin examinations revealed the men and women who got regular exercise had visibly younger skin.
Examinations of the skin structure showed its composition to be similar to that of people aged 20 to 30 years old. [SOURCE 3]
Acne Prevention
Let’s face it, acne does not do a lot for your looks.
Sure, you can hide it with makeup but most women would rather they didn’t have acne at all. Another one of the good things about exercise is it can help keep acne away.
Acne is normally the result of an oily secretion called sebum that can block the pores. The sebaceous glands release it regularly. It’s normal, but if the glands produce too much too often, it can cause problems.
Many factors can set sebum production into overdrive.
Cortisol is one of them so the fact that exercise can lower cortisol by increasing serotonin is not just beneficial for the hair.
Of course, much of the anti-acne benefits of exercise come from its ability to cleanse the pores with plenty of sweat.
However, it’s important not to let the sweat linger on the skin too long. Doing so has the potential to cause acne or make it worse.
Breast Improvement
These days, people tend to forget it’s possible to firm the breasts without surgery. The media has done a good job of making going under the knife seem like the trendy option.
However, trendy or not, it’s possible to increase breast size by doing a few well-chosen chest exercises.
The secret is to correctly target the pectoral muscles. When done correctly dumbbell presses and flies can be good for pumping up the chest.
There is no need to go to the gym either. Push-ups can work well too. Many chest exercises can and the results will be real.
Performing chest exercises will also get the blood pumping to provide all the other beauty benefits associated with exercise.
Additional Benefits and Considerations
Following a regular and consistent exercise routine will firm up all the muscles in the body.
This can help provide a sleeker, sexier look. In order to obtain the maximum benefit, it’s best to combine exercise with a sensible diet.
Eating a nutritious, low-calorie diet will ensure the body has all the nutrients it needs.
Remember, the blood can’t supply nutrients to the hair, skin, muscles, or important organs unless it has them in the first place.
A balanced diet should provide them.
B vitamins, iron, and other nutrients can also boost energy levels and improve stamina. This makes it easier to exercise and prevents you from running out of steam mid-session.
The right combination of diet and exercise can also help you to burn fat.
Apart from helping to provide that classic hour-glass figure, this can also uncover the muscles and improve definition.
Let’s not forget exercise is good for the heart as well. It can also improve sleep, boost the libido, and sharpen the mind.
Exercise benefits the body in an incredible number of ways. Helping to improve physical beauty is just one of them.
If you want to look your best, feel your best, and generally be the best you can be, there are many reasons to make exercise a part of your daily beauty routine.