Bad Habits That Are Harming Your Skin

The average human skin covers a whopping 21 square feet, making it the human body’s largest organ. Since your skin plays an invaluable protective role, keeping it looking its best is not only a cosmetic endeavor, but also a health and wellness one. Unfortunately, there are many bad habits that can weaken your skin, leaving it looking a lot worse for the wear.

To help make the most of your skin care regimen, Z-Roc Dermatology’s Drs. Khongruk Wongkittiroch and Matthew Zarraga, who are some of the best dermatologists in Florida’s Fort Lauderdale area, have pulled together a few habits to avoid.

Here comes the sun

Since we live in sunny Florida, we’re going to start with the most obvious bad habit — allowing the sun to break down your skin. In fact, exposure to the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays accounts for 80% of the visible signs of aging in your skin.

To prevent photoaging, we recommend that you cover up and use sunscreen anytime you head outdoors. There are wonderful skin care products that include SPF, and we offer them here.

Another reason to quit (or cut down)

Smoking and drinking are two of the worst habits for your skin. Smoking breaks down collagen and harms the blood vessels in your skin, preventing valuable resources from repairing the tissue.

While a glass or two of wine each day won’t harm your skin, regularly overindulging causes system-wide inflammation, which can leave your skin looking puffy.

Keep it clean, but not too clean

While it’s perfectly fine (and recommended) to wash your skin every day, don’t overdo it with harsh soaps and cleansers. Your skin naturally produces oils that keep it well nourished and you want to encourage these oils, not strip them away. Here again, we offer gentle daily cleansers that clear away dirt and debris without removing essential oils.

Don’t overdo the scrubbing

We recommend that you exfoliate a few times a week to lift away dead skin cells and debris from your pores, but over scrubbing can damage skin, leaving it inflamed and irritated.

Erase the day

There are times when you just don’t have the energy to remove your makeup before bed, but don’t make this a regular habit. Makeup attracts dirt and debris so you need to remove it each night to give your skin a fresh start the next morning.

Load up on antioxidants

What you eat can greatly affect your skin. Instead of a steady diet of empty calories, ensure that the foods you eat have plenty of antioxidants, which help protect your tissue. Some great examples are:

Orange fruits and vegetables (carrots and apricots, for example)
Leafy greens, such as kale and spinach
Berries
Fatty fishes (salmon, mackerel, etc.)
Nuts
Beans

We’re happy to supply you with more skin-healthy foods during your next visit.

Come and see us

Speaking of a visit, we suggest that you see us regularly (at least once a year) so that we can monitor your skin and discuss ways to keep it healthy. And we’re not just talking about anti-aging efforts, but also problems that range from mild (acne) to severe (skin cancer).

If you have more questions about how to best care for your skin, please contact us to set up an appointment.