We live in a visual age. Everywhere we turn, we are bombarded by provocative images of flawless women and men. Even though it’s common knowledge that models all of fourteen years old pose as full-grown women, and that the exquisite pictures in magazines and advertisements have been carefully lit and photo-edited, I continue to see so many people measure themselves against this idealized standard of beauty. Their self-esteem inevitably suffers in a youth-obsessed culture, because they have internalized a standard of beauty that has nothing to do with reality. To make matters worse, cameras are inescapable. Friends and family snap away with their phones and post photos and videos on Facebook and YouTube. The pressure is on. Candid photographs often magnify imperfections, reminding people already critical of themselves that they fall short of their ideal.
Some of the most beautiful people in the world come to my office. I would like to say that they are all confident and secure about their extraordinary looks, but that is far from the truth. Many beauties focus minutely on what is wrong and what needs improvement. The competitive instinct is very intense in all of us, whether or not we are in the public eye. From my patients, I have learned that even people whose faces are admired around the world struggle with the same insecurity and self-criticism as anyone else.
If you take good care of yourself mentally and physically, you should be fortunate to live a long, healthy life. As you age, you will want to continue to look as good as you feel. The vast “anti-aging” industry caters to and manages to distort this basic desire. Since the effects of aging are first visible on the skin, dermatology has been elevated to the top of the heap in the war against time. An entire menu of treatments and products exists to minimize the visible signs of aging. This buffet approach to dermatology can provoke impulsive action. Influenced by what their friends have done and the incessant media buzz on the subject, people are driven to buy the latest hyped product and do what they can to look younger. There are plenty of people out there, qualified or not, ready to entice you with unrealistic promises and misleading descriptions of procedures and their aftermath.
The illusion of youth and beauty is sold non-stop everywhere you turn. Exaggerated claims about the latest anti-aging gadget, procedure, serum, and supplement have reshaped consumers’ expectations. The media create a fantasy, and consumers respond by demanding faster and faster changes in their appearance. Cosmetics companies, medical spas, surgeons, and procedure-happy “health care providers” and dermatologists have profited by supplying what people have been made to want. There are countless “experts” out there eager to sell you products and procedures that fuel your fantasies.
People often come to see me in search of a quick fix or reversal. They suffer lifestyle abuse to their skin or give it minimal care until they have an aha moment, and a light goes on in their heads. The realization that they have neglected to do anything to make themselves look and feel better makes them vulnerable to the anti-aging selling machine. An increasing number of people get hooked on invasive procedures and surgery at a young age. I have met women who had their first face-lift in their thirties. They believe that regular touch-ups will make them ageless. Some have a vision of how they want to look and will make radical changes to their faces and bodies in an attempt to reach an imagined ideal. I have witnessed the cosmetic surgery junkie mentality, and it is disturbing. After the first three procedures, people hooked on surgery lose their compass—and their ability to perceive how they look. They are no longer capable of making a rational judgment. Instead, they keep striving for an elusive vision of perfection.
There is so much noise out there about treatments, products, and procedures, it is hard for most people to cut through the confusion. Many people respond to the hype by buying into the promises and trying whatever they can. Ever hopeful, they go from product to product, treatment to treatment, looking for visible results. Even if they are lucky enough to see improvement, it is usually short-lived. Some are scared off and decide against any intervention at all, while others are talked into procedures that do not deliver what they expect—or worse, cause problems. I believe in a more measured, realistic approach to skin and beauty. I want you to step back from all the hype and avoid unnecessary procedures. I want you to be in charge of refreshing your skin and making it healthier.
Many patients come to me voicing concern over their age and what it means to be “old.” If you are in good shape and look radiant, who cares about how old you are? Age is only a number and a mind-set. True beauty is being the best you can be in all aspects of your life. My goal is to help people recognize and enhance their natural beauty with a little help from many avenues and approaches. To do that, it is important to be realistic about the way you want to look, and patient when achieving the results.
So much energy goes into creating the illusion of beauty. Women come to the office for facials and procedures wearing theatrical-grade makeup, which, of course, we have to remove to examine their skin. Cosmetics are used as camouflage. Rather than correcting problems like uneven pigmentation, big pores, or rosacea, the impulse is to cover up imperfections rather than deal with them. “I couldn’t be seen without makeup!” and “I never go out without my face on” are common refrains these days. One of my patients comes for her appointments with a professional makeup artist, who waits in the reception area to reapply her “face” after her treatments. It puzzles me that she spends time and money on her skin, which she never shows to the world in its natural state. My hope is that by following my at-home regimen, your skin will look so good that you will only need to wear minimal makeup, or even none at all.
Whenever I walk into a treatment room to consult with patients, I hand them a mirror and have them point with a Q-tip to what is bothering them. I ask them, “What can I do for you?” I can rarely predict what the response will be. Often the patient’s assessment is different from what strikes me at first glance. One person might be bothered by a small blemish on the left side of his outer eye and ignore the skin cancer on the tip of his nose. Another might have excessively pumped-up lips but be worried about a small discoloration under her chin. Insecurity makes people overanalytical about their looks. They become preoccupied with real or imagined defects and obsessive about cosmetic concerns.
Your own self-image is the key to beauty. If you are confident, full of life, and passionate, you will be irresistible; you are more than what you see in the mirror. If you are self-conscious, insecure, and trying too hard, you will telegraph your poor self-image to everyone in countless unspoken ways. If you feel good about yourself, people will respond positively to you. Self-acceptance and confidence are the foundation of beauty—and sex appeal.
Both the subliminal and the obvious messages of the beauty trap are designed to make you dissatisfied with your looks—and to make you go to great lengths and expense to change them. That being said, there is nothing wrong with wanting to improve your appearance. I have spent my life helping men and women to do just that. It is all a matter of degree and expectations. We do get older, after all; everything in nature ages. Though now we can slow down the process and diminish many of the visible signs of aging, many people go too far. Frozen features, duck-bill lips, and skin that is stretched too thin and too tight are alarming, artificial, and draw attention to their attempts to be someone they are not.
I believe in what I call a revolutionary evolution in our thinking about beauty. I have found that rehabilitation works better than surgery and other aggressive treatments to restore the skin’s youthful appearance. Though it is simple, my approach is a breakthrough in skin care for the restoration of a healthy, more youthful appearance. You can rejuvenate your skin with the program in this book. You will begin with my breakthrough three-step regimen and combine it with lifestyle changes that prevent further damage and provide an environment in which natural restoration can occur. You will be amazed by the results. You can choose to age gracefully. As people abandon extreme treatments and surgeries to change their looks, our idea of beauty will evolve to be more natural and age-appropriate without sacrificing the vibrancy and appeal of youth.
To be outstanding at my work, I have to think in six dimensions. All people have the obvious three dimensions of length, width, and depth. Time, the fourth, is the overall winning dimension. Time inevitably changes everything. You can try to postpone, delay, or cancel, but time’s passing is a reality of life. The fifth dimension is perception: understanding what patients see when they look at their reflections in the mirror, how they perceive themselves. The sixth dimension is the future, and what I can do now that will serve a patient later.
Putting this in more concrete terms, when I consult with a patient, I assess the physical condition of his or her skin and whether it shows signs of aging or disease in three dimensions. Then I have to project into time, imagining what that face will look like ten years from now. All of my patients think in the fifth dimension. They come to see me because they perceive problems. They identify the “flaws” they want me to correct. Their perception of how they look is so often different from what I see. Some discover the slightest sign of aging on close examination and are desperate to stop the process. They either dread or cannot conceive of how they will look as they age. They want to make time disappear. I try to make my patients realistic about the passage of time. We all get older. The goal is to do the job well.
I am a minimalist when it comes to creating a treatment plan. Rather than jumping right in with an invasive approach, I begin with skin care and then determine the least invasive route to take that will satisfy a particular patient’s need. I avoid the quick-fix approach, and make sure I have a full understanding of where my patient lies on the Lancer Ethnicity Scale, a classification system I developed that gauges how a patient’s skin will react to various treatments based on ancestry. I then devise the best course of action possible. My patients become active participants in a plan to look and feel their best. I am writing this book so that you will have the tools and the knowledge to do the same. There have been so many advances in procedures to make your complexion look younger. The trick is to find the right path. Rather than offering you a recipe or a menu for making extreme changes to your appearance, I want you to learn how to evaluate your looks realistically. You will have the savvy to reject the promises of the deceptive beauty trap, adjust your expectations, and remain radiantly beautiful and appealing for the rest of your life.
Exposed to the world, your skin shows the first signs of aging. You react to what you see in the mirror, but you probably do not realize that the aging of your skin directly reflects what is happening to your physical brain and the way it functions. Skin and brain cells develop from the same tissue, called the ectoderm, which is the outermost layer of an embryo. The nervous system, epidermis, nails, hair, and glands of the skin are all formed from the ectoderm as the embryo develops. If your skin is aging prematurely, your brain is undergoing parallel changes. When you are diligent about improving your skin—and a big part of that is lifestyle—the benefits will reach far beyond your appearance. The lifestyle changes you make will keep your brain functioning at optimal levels, boost your energy, and lift your spirits.
You are undoubtedly all too familiar with the visible signs of aging—thinning, sagging, fragile, dull, wrinkled skin with dark spots in sun-exposed areas. Though these signs may occur at different rates in different patients, they are unavoidable if you do nothing to prevent them. Genetics, environmental factors, nutrition, stress, and sun exposure all contribute to the aging of your skin.
The changes in your skin are a consequence of genetically programmed internal aging, which occurs with time; extrinsic aging, caused by environmental factors such as sun exposure, which causes photo-aging; and lifestyle. Intrinsic, biological aging involves internal changes at the cellular level. In the most general sense, the reproduction of skin cells slows down as you age. As you get older, your body produces more enzymes that break down collagen and elastic tissue, the bundles of protein that give skin its plumpness and bounce. Finally, the material that fills the spaces surrounding cells, called the extracellular matrix, diminishes, because the rate at which it is formed slows down. The matrix provides structural support for the cells, and when the volume of the extracellular matrix decreases, the cells collapse on one another, causing the skin to lose tone. Falling levels of hormones, especially estrogen and testosterone, play a part in the aging process as well. Exposure to environmental factors—like sun, cold, pollutants, toxins—ages your skin from the outside. The older you are, the longer you have been exposed to harmful influences. Diet, exercise, sleep habits, stress levels, and illness affect the internal processes that age you. All this shows up on your face. You are your skin.
The patients I have seen who have not been blessed with good health, whose medical histories include serious physical ailments, almost always show signs of premature aging. Their skin can look pasty, pale, and dull. I work with multiple medical specialists to cooperate on the process of internal and external repair for medically challenged patients. My at-home skin routine has restored the health and vitality of their skin by improving the cycle of cell renewal and self-repair.
A number of things you do or fail to do are known skin agers. The following list contains the biggest offenses. You stand a good chance of looking older and damaging your skin if you:
1. Do not have a good daily skin care regimen.
Taking care of your skin should be as routine as brushing your teeth. You go to the dentist regularly for exams and cleanings. Your skin deserves at least as much attention as your teeth. You need to polish, clean, and nourish your skin each day with products that will keep it healthy and clear. My program will show you how. Make a point of seeing a dermatologist to discuss good overall maintenance and to plan a treatment program, starting with non-invasive procedures to keep your skin looking young.
2. Fail to use sunscreen every day.
Sun exposure without protection is the most damaging thing you can do to your skin. Use a sunscreen of at least 30 SPF on your skin every day. My protocol for when and how often to apply appears below. Remember to wear sunglasses when you are outdoors. Squinting can cause crow’s-feet and frown lines, not to mention damage to your vision. Here are some additional tips to remember:
• Limit your time outdoors when the sun is at its peak between 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.
• Give your skin time to absorb sunscreen before sun exposure. Apply sunscreen liberally, fifteen minutes to half an hour before going outdoors.
• Use enough sunscreen to coat all skin that will not be covered by clothing. Most people apply only 25 to 50 percent of the recommended amount. Follow the guideline of “one ounce, enough to fill a shot glass” to cover the exposed areas of your body.
• Do not forget your lips. Use a product that has been specially formulated for your lips with an SPF of 20 or more.
• Wear long pants, a shirt with long sleeves, and a hat with a wide brim if you are planning to be out during peak hours. The lighter the color and more tightly woven your clothes, the more protection from the sun they will afford. A white T-shirt has an SPF of only 5. You can buy clothing with built-in SPF or wash the clothing you wear outdoors with a laundry aid like SunGuard, which gives clothes a higher SPF.
• Reapply sunscreen frequently, every two or three hours, depending on the time of day and what you are doing. Be sure to use a generous amount each time. A thin coat of protection can reduce the effectiveness by as much as 50 percent. Remember to protect your ears and hairline.
• Be careful about reflected light. A beach umbrella or shade trees give you only moderate protection. UV rays reflect from sand, snow, and concrete. They even penetrate water. The underpart of your chin is particularly vulnerable to reflected light. You do not want to contribute to signs of aging on your neck if you can prevent it.
• There is no such thing as a healthy tan. If a burnished look appeals to you anyway, take it slowly and let the skin build up melanin gradually. Do not use tanning beds. Tanning beds and sunlamps generally emit 93 to 99 percent UVA radiation. This is three times the UVA radiation given off by the sun.
• Be aware that some medications increase the risk of UV ray damage. Check with your doctor about the medications you are taking and any new ones that might be prescribed.
• Know that some skin types are at a greater risk of UV damage.
3. Smoke or are exposed to secondhand smoke for long periods of time.
Cigarette smoke—even secondhand—triggers biochemical changes that accelerate aging. The damage can be seen under a microscope for smokers as young as twenty. People who smoke are more likely to develop deeply wrinkled, leathery skin with a yellow tinge. Smoking depletes the body of vitamin C, a key anti-oxidant that helps to keep your skin plump and moist. Some believe that smoking is as damaging to skin as UVA rays. The good news is that you can improve your skin tone if you stop.
4. Drink too much alcohol.
Drinking liquor affects your circulation. Small blood vessels dilate and blood flows near the surface, creating a flushed appearance. Alcohol is a diuretic that dehydrates the entire body, as is evidenced by the intense thirst of a hangover. When your skin is dehydrated, it becomes scaly and taut with superficial lines and premature aging. Dehydration becomes more prevalent with age. Drinking will only intensify the problem. A glass or two of red wine with dinner now and then is not a problem. Regular, habitual, excessive drinking is. Make sure to drink plenty of water whenever you drink alcoholic beverages.
5. Are a couch potato.
Moderate exercise is an important part of anti-aging skin care. Exercise increases circulation and blood flow to the skin, stimulates neurons, and produces sweat that cleans the body from the inside. Increased circulation carries more oxygen and nutrients to the skin. More natural oils are produced that keep your skin looking healthy. Exercise keeps your muscles strong and firm, and muscles support your skin, giving it a smooth appearance. Most important, exercise is a stress buster that helps you to relax. Warning: Working out too intensely can be harmful. Not only does an extreme workout produce stress hormones, but it will create free radicals as well.
6. Eat processed, junk, and fried foods, along with too many simple carbs.
Processed food is dead food: It has lost most of its important nutrients in processing. The natural nutrients that are lost are often replaced by synthetic additives—and then there are the toxic preservatives, food colors, and other chemicals. Processed food is loaded with sugar and salt, both of which are bad for your skin. To look younger, you need to eat more whole and raw foods. Fatty, greasy, and oily foods made with saturated fats, trans fats, and hydrogenated oil become toxic when heated and create free radicals. Simple carbohydrates—all the white foods, including bread, rice, pasta, sweets, and most desserts—are digested quickly and turned into sugar. All that sugar sets off glycation, which accelerates the aging process. When sugar comes in contact with collagen, an immediate chemical reaction occurs. Free radicals and advanced glycation end products, appropriately called AGEs, are formed. AGEs damage the protein fibers of collagen and elastin and signal inflammatory processes in the cells. If you can reduce glycation through a clean, plant-based diet, you can slow the aging process.
7. Engage in yo-yo dieting or weight cycling.
The starve-and-binge cycle, known as weight cycling, is very damaging to your skin, especially if a lot of weight is involved. Repeated stretching by gaining weight may damage your skin’s elasticity; conversely, losing weight too fast can leave your skin saggy. Yo-yo dieting also throws your hormones out of balance, increasing production of the stress hormone cortisol. Too much cortisol causes inflammation, which ages you.
8. Fail to get enough quality sleep or experience “sleep interruptus.”
As you already know, most likely from your own experience, sleep loss can lead to dull skin, dark circles under the eyes, and eventually fine lines. When you do not get enough sleep, your body releases more of the stress hormone cortisol. In addition to causing inflammation, cortisol breaks down collagen. When you have inadequate sleep, your body releases too little human growth hormone, which declines as you age anyway. HGH works during the night to repair tissue, restoring skin cells after the wear and tear of the day. If you are not getting enough sleep, you are preventing the repair process from being effective.
9. Stress out chronically, with a mind that will not quit.
Stress causes eczema, hives, rosacea, and psoriasis, and there is a strong connection with acne. Stress disturbs your body’s homeostasis and throws your hormones out of whack. Cortisol levels stay elevated, which creates free radicals and impairs the rejuvenation of your skin. Emotional stress retards cell renewal, destroys collagen fibers in the skin, and breaks down elastin. Your skin’s barrier protection can weaken when you are under stress, which affects skin hydration and your immune system. More pathogens are able to invade your body through the compromised barrier. This breakdown is part of the reason why you might get sick during times of stress. Unrelenting stress can result in the thinning and dulling of your hair as well.
Oprah asked me to work with twenty women in the last season of her Oprah Winfrey Show. Every one of them had significant personal problems and hardship. Several women were in serious financial trouble, many had bad marriages, one was divorced and raising a handicapped child alone, another was dealing with the suicide of a child, a few had children who had overdosed, and several had to care for aged parents. Though they were sophisticated about skin care and aware of what they needed to do to stay healthy, they were overwhelmed by the difficult circumstances in their lives. They were focused on family disruptions and daily struggles, and they no longer bothered to maintain themselves.
Their lives were so stressful that they did not think about what was good for them. They could not take a step back to consider what the unchecked stress was doing to their bodies. They had let themselves go. Skin changes are gradual, and then, there they are. These women did not like the changes they were seeing, but they felt hopeless about addressing them. Oprah brought me in to show them what they could do themselves with little time or expense. They needed a program they could easily incorporate into their lives.
When they began my self-care program, their skin responded within three to five days. They had dramatic results by using my polish-cleanse-nourish method to rejuvenate their skin. We added facials and some non-invasive treatments to show them how far they could go to reverse the signs of aging without extreme measures. The improvements extended beyond their appearance. When their skin brightened up, so did they. They were energized and better able to handle the hardship in their lives. They realized they deserved to give themselves the same care that they did not hesitate to give to others. The changes in how they looked and felt buoyed them up. They understood that taking care of themselves had to be a priority.
10. Sleep every night with your face on your pillow in the same position.
If you sleep on your side every night, your cheek, jawline, and neck are pushed against the pillow. Your skin could be folded or creased for several hours a night. Over the years, those folds become etched into your skin to form sleep lines. Sleeping in the fetal position not only affects your face, but could make your décolletage crepey. A facedown position may cause wrinkles in your forehead. Sleeping on your back is the best way to go. There is no pressure on your face, and you breathe more oxygen.
This list is not meant as a reprimand. There are very few people who do not abuse themselves in one way or another. I will use myself as an example. I religiously follow the anti-aging lifestyle that I recommend to my patients. Though I eat well and exercise just about every day, I get up at 4:30 a.m., a learned habit from surgical days. I am at the office five days a week from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and usually show up on Saturday. I turn in early at night. My wife has a hard time getting me to take a vacation. I love what I do but have to acknowledge that working so hard is addictive behavior. With all that I know about the body and aging, I still follow an extremely demanding schedule and do not build in enough downtime to relax. I tell you this to make it clear that no one is perfect. We all neglect ourselves in one way or another. If I have convinced you to try to break your bad habits, take them on one at a time. If you ease into changing your behavior, you will have a better chance at success.
The natural degeneration associated with aging occurs in your DNA, which holds the genetic or hereditary material that makes you who you are. A chromosome is a long strand of DNA, consisting of protein and tight coils of DNA. The tips of chromosomes are protected by caps called telomeres, which prevent coils of DNA in our chromosomes from unraveling and fraying. Our cells are constantly dividing, supplying new, healthy cells that function properly to keep our bodies running well. Each time a cell divides, the telomeres get shorter and become less effective at protecting the chromosomes from injury and deterioration. If you think of a telomere as the tip at the end of a shoelace, you will get the idea. A shoelace begins to unravel when the tip wears down. When telomeres become too short, essential parts of the DNA can be damaged. Eventually, the cell is no longer able to divide and replicate, and it dies. In effect, a telomere acts as a timer on the life of a cell.
The aging of your cells does not always match your chronological age. Scientists can use the length of a cell’s telomeres to determine its age and how many more times it will replicate. The way you live affects the rate at which your telomeres shorten. Your telomeres can be worn down by an unhealthy lifestyle. Prematurely short telomeres have been linked to obesity, a deficient diet, and a sedentary lifestyle.
The lowering of natural hormone levels over time is another factor in the skin’s intrinsic aging process. The hormones most involved with your skin include estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, DHEA, and human growth hormone. When the levels of these hormones fall as you age, particularly with menopause, your skin is significantly affected.
Estrogen allows the skin to remain plump and wrinkle-free. By maintaining the fluid balance, this hormone keeps the skin moist. Although estrogen receptors in skin are located all over the body, they are concentrated in the face. These receptors support collagen production. When estrogen levels go down, so does the number of receptors.
The decrease in estrogen during perimenopause and menopause is a major factor in aging. Estrogen maintains the thickness of the outer layer of skin. When estrogen levels decline, the skin thins. Estrogen loss causes hot flashes, during which the skin becomes flushed and blotchy. Estrogen has anti-inflammatory properties. The inflammation of the skin and in the body increases as production of the hormone slows down and eventually stops. The precipitous drop in estrogen levels during menopause means a reduction in collagen production and breaking down of existing collagen, which leads to a loss of firmness.
Progesterone, another female hormone that decreases with age, reduces inflammation and stimulates collagen production. This hormone regulates sleep and boosts immunity and brain function. When progesterone levels decline during perimenopause, such symptoms as poor sleep, mood swings, and foggy thinking can occur. The sleep disruption many women experience during menopause is tied to falling progesterone levels.
Getting the proper amount of restorative sleep is essential if you want to keep your skin looking young and fresh.
The chief male hormone or androgen is testosterone. Testosterone is involved in the production of sebum, an oily substance secreted by the sebaceous glands in the skin. On the upside, sebum helps reduce wrinkles. Male skin takes longer to wrinkle because of the level of testosterone in men’s bodies. On the downside, too much sebum contributes to acne.
Following menopause, the balance between estrogen and androgens is thrown off. This can lead to adult acne in women. In addition, the relative increase in androgens can cause other male characteristics to appear in women, including facial hair and pattern baldness. Testosterone contributes to mood, energy, sex drive, muscle mass, and memory in men and women. As testosterone levels fall, these qualities recede in both sexes. Lower testosterone also affects weight management.
DHEA, a precursor hormone to estrogen and androgens, protects against obesity by shifting metabolism from fat storage to energy burning. DHEA supports the dermis and increases the production of collagen. It protects against oxidative stress, which is a very important anti-aging function.
Human growth hormone (HGH) has become the magic bullet of the moment. Used by weight lifters for some time to build muscles, HGH is being pushed by supplement companies as a miracle anti-aging agent. As the name indicates, HGH enhances tissue growth, increases muscle mass, and strengthens bone density. When HGH declines, your skin loses elasticity and your body loses muscle, which makes for saggy skin.
Free radicals are a by-product of your metabolism, created when your cells produce energy. Almost all of the oxygen you breathe is used for this purpose. The remaining oxygen molecules lose electrons, and those molecules become free radicals, also known as ROS (reactive oxygen species). These unstable molecules are like vampires that attack normal molecules to steal the electrons that they are missing. Seeking to stabilize themselves, free radicals attack the fatty membrane of a cell or the DNA within the nucleus to appropriate electrons. Once the free radical steals electrons from its victim, the free radical is neutralized, but the victim becomes a new free radical, as if bitten by a vampire. That free radical steals electrons to stabilize itself, and a chain reaction begins. Think of slices of apple left out on a plate. The apple turns brown. This is oxidation made visible. The same process is at work when metal rusts or tarnishes. In nature, everything eventually breaks down, and the human body is no different.
Many environmental factors speed the formation of free radicals, most notably exposure to the sun’s damaging ultraviolet rays, a subject of importance I will discuss at length later. Free radicals are produced during the normal metabolism of food. Certain foods have a high potential for setting off a destructive cascade of free radicals. For example, foods that are fried at a high temperature can cause fat molecules to become unstable. Toxic heavy metals like mercury, aluminum, lead, and cadmium create free radicals. Hormones like cortisol that are created when you are stressed also produce a free radical cascade. If free radical production goes out of control, inflammation results.
When it comes to your skin, free radicals are trouble. They attack the fats and proteins in the skin and severely damage skin cells, causing premature aging. The good news is that you can minimize free radical damage with simple lifestyle changes. You can replenish anti-oxidants with topical applications, supplements, and your diet. For instance, vitamins A, C, and E are anti-oxidants that slow the aging process by preventing free radicals from oxidizing other molecules.
The condition of your skin stems more directly from how you treat it than from your biological programming. The environment you create in your body can speed up or slow down the intrinsic aging process. What you eat, especially your consumption of alcohol and sugar, how much you sleep, your tobacco use, the level of stress in your life, anxiety, and depression—all play a role in how you age. You have to make healthy choices if you want to delay the aging process. When you learn about the effects that your behavior and habits have on your skin, I hope you will want to change your ways. Understanding how some of your habits put the intrinsic aging processes into overdrive is an important first step. Learning how to stimulate cell renewal with the Lancer Method is another.
You now have an overview of what makes you age, both inside and out. You know the habits that will push you toward premature aging and accelerate the visible signs of skin aging. The next chapter probes more deeply into how the skin restores itself. Manipulating this mechanism is at the core of the Lancer Method.