As much as I wish I could go back in time and give my younger self some tips on what to do and what not to do, I can’t. Although, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t listen to myself anyway. I was an extremely hard-headed teenager, as many are. Hopefully, if you are a teen now, or you are sharing this with your teen, it’s better received than would have been for me.
I am not a doctor and nor do I claim to be one. I am just a 41-year-old woman with three kids and your average life who’s picked up on a few things over the years. Hopefully, these fairly unconventional tips from my experiences can be used for some good.
Let’s get down to it, shall we?
1. Keep The Wrinkles Away
Sleep on your back! Yep, I said it, and it might sound strange, but hear me out. Gravity can either be used for good or, it can wreak havoc on you as you age. Ever look at us older women and wonder why some of us have crows feet (the two lines on our forehead between our eyebrows) and other wrinkles, and some don’t?
Well, here’s the secret – gravity.
As you age, your skin loses a lot of its elasticity, so it’s not as “tight” as it was when you were younger. This leaves it vulnerable to the effects of what I like to call “gravity folding.” If you sleep on your side, the skin on your face, and other parts of your body like your chest, creases over on itself, which results in many of these lines we get, such as “crows feet” between our eyebrow area.
You can tell where this is happening once it’s started because when you get up in the mornings, it is much more prominent. In my experience, it’s most common between the eyes and the upper portion of your chest. The chest area is partially caused by the gravity on your breasts as you lay still. They lay over on each other (whether they touch or not doesn’t matter), so as a result, your chest will fold much like a piece of paper. After years of this, voila, you end up with permanent lines. This brings me to my next tip…
2. Keeping Your Girls Up
Sleep with a bra or sports bra on! I know it sounds uncomfortable. But, if Halle Berry can do it, so can you. Once again, gravity is at play here. Not only will this support bra decrease your chances of those lines on your chest from occurring if you accidentally sleep on your side, but it will help with keeping your “girls” perky as well.
Keeping them in place as you sleep is the best way to keep them from doing all the things you don’t want them to do any time soon – like sag, hang over to the sides when you’re on your back, etc. Halle Berry swears by this as she credits it, along with special chest exercises she does, to her continued perkiness.
Of course, you will find all kinds of opinions about this online, but here’s the deal. I know for a fact, if I had been given this advice and listened to it when I was younger, my girls would be in much better condition right now, and according to Women’s Health, it can’t harm you, so why not?
3. Look Younger Longer
Wear sunscreen on your face every day! It doesn’t matter if you live in an area that rains every day of your life, get a moisturizer that has some level of sunscreen protection in it and use it on your face and any other areas of your body that are often exposed to the elements.
Here’s the thing, not only can the sun increase your chances of skin cancer as you age, but it also can cause early skin aging! Yep, it sure can! Don’t get me wrong, vitamin D is incredible and absolutely necessary, but those UV rays are not. If you want to help your face continue to look healthy and wrinkle-free as you get older, this is the absolute best step you can take to do so. It’s also medically recommended!
4. Know Your Body
Track your period. Yeah, sounds pretty much like common sense, right? Well, you wouldn’t believe how many teenage girls don’t do this. They assume that as long as they aren’t having sex or are using protection, they are fine, and there is no need to worry about keeping track of their cycle.
The problem with that belief, though, is that pregnancy isn’t the only reason you should be tracking your period. Your health is very much at stake too.
You see, your period can tell you a lot about your body, including whether or not something may be wrong. Having an extremely heavy flow or even missing your period could indicate a serious underlying problem in your body.
Download an app on your phone and keep track of your cycle. If you have an Apple phone, there is already a built-in cycle tracker for you to use in the health app. It’s also an app for your Apple Watch so you can easily tap a button to document when you start and stop, and how heavy or light your flow is.
5. Take Care Of Your Nails
Fake nails destroy your real nails. I’m sure you’re going to hate me right now for saying this, but it has to be said. I have always had great nails. They grow long and are hard and great to polish, but that’s because of two reasons:
1) I’ve never been a nail biter, and 2) I have only tried the fake nails twice in my adult life, and both times I saw the horrible damage they did to my nails. So I’ve decided not to use them again.
Yes, your nails do grow back, so sure you could wear the fake ones, have them taken off, and then wait about six months for your real nails to grow back and not be paper-thin anymore. Or, you could just always spend tons of money every month or two to get new fake nails put on again to hide the damage to your real nails. But if you ever really want your nails to be beautiful on their own, take my advice and avoid the fake nails.
I hope that these few tips can help you as you make your voyage across the next few decades. You can look at all of these as being habits that you can adapt into your daily life.
We all have habits already, such as hitting the snooze button on the alarm clock too many times in the mornings, and spending just a little too much time in the shower every day.
Building intentional habits, such as those I listed above, are an excellent practice to improve in any area of your life that you choose.
If you don’t do anything else, just make sure you take care of yourself now to have no regrets later.
