Besides genetics, certain habits can lead to the early appearance of wrinkles, making you look older than your age.
As people age, the skin becomes less elastic, starting as early as 20 years old and continuing gradually throughout life. However, external factors can accelerate this process.
Rubbing Your Eyes
The skin around the eyes is much thinner than the rest of the face, making it more prone to aging. This area also contains fewer oil glands, collagen, and proteins, which are essential for skin elasticity and firmness. Over time, these factors contribute to wrinkles and crow’s feet around the eyes.
If you habitually rub your eyes, the repetitive motions stretch the delicate skin, breaking down collagen and leading to wrinkles.
Eating Too Much Sugar
Consuming excessive sugar overloads your cells, causing sugar molecules to bind with proteins, forming glycation. This process damages collagen, leading to sagging skin and deep wrinkles.
Not Wearing Sunglasses
When exposed to sunlight, people often squint, causing the skin between the eyebrows and around the eyes to contract, forming wrinkles. Sunglasses are a safe solution to prevent squinting and protect the delicate skin under the eyes from UV rays.
Wearing Contact Lenses
While wearing contact lenses doesn’t directly cause wrinkles, the way we insert them can. To put them in, people often raise their eyebrows. Like squinting, this repetitive motion can lead to forehead wrinkles over time.
Sleeping on Your Stomach
Your sleeping position also affects wrinkle formation. Sleeping on your stomach applies prolonged pressure to the face, breaking down collagen and resulting in wrinkles.
Using Straws
Regularly using straws forces you to purse your lips. This repetitive movement causes the muscles around the mouth to contract repeatedly, breaking down collagen in this area and creating wrinkles.
Resting Your Chin on Your Hand
Frequent chin resting can unintentionally create facial wrinkles as this action impacts muscle groups in the face. If repeated over time, these wrinkles can become permanent and difficult to treat.
Lack of Sleep
Elastin and collagen are proteins that help keep skin firm, tight, and elastic. Lack of sleep weakens the immune system, disrupting collagen production and leading to wrinkles.
Additionally, sleep deprivation upsets the skin’s balance, causing it to lose moisture and lower its pH, leaving it dull and lifeless.
Chewing Gum
Excessive gum chewing can cause wrinkles around the mouth. This happens due to the repetitive movements of the mouth muscles and teeth while chewing. Furthermore, gum chewing can stretch the muscle fibers around the lips and skin, contributing to wrinkle formation.
Direct Sun Exposure
Exposure to sunlight or UV rays causes facial wrinkles. For those with lighter skin tones, the impact of sunlight on the skin is more pronounced. UV rays break down elastin and collagen fibers in the skin, which are responsible for connective tissue structure. Once damaged, the skin becomes weaker and less resilient, eventually sagging and forming wrinkles.
