Is Your Skin Reaping These Benefits From Exercise?

By: Louise Forrest

When you think of exercise, do you think of toning your body? Maybe you think of losing weight or building muscles. Maybe your doctor has told you that you nave to exercise for health reasons.

There are a number of things that people think of when they think of exercise, but skin care is usually not one of them. I have seen the skin care benefits of exercise firsthand. My oldest son has been experiencing severe acne and recently joined the cross-country running team at his high school. After three weeks of running daily with the team, he has already begun to show a major difference in his skin.

Acne sufferers are not the only people that have their skin benefit from exercise. Exercise improves your circulation, which means that any skin will benefit from it. Increased circulation brings more nutrients to the skin and removes more internal toxins from it. Perspiration during exercise pushes upper layer toxins to the surface and, provided you cleanse the skin after exercise, these toxins are removed. The result is a natural glow that is associated with youthful, healthy skin. Of course, your skin will be much healthier, but it may not be as youthful, but it will appear that way.

Unlike my son, you do not have to take on an incredibly vigorous exercise; you simply need to begin doing an exercise that increases that heart rate for at least 20 minutes. Exercise that elevates the heart rate for 20 minutes or more will have keep your heart rate increased (to some extent) for the same duration after you stop the exercise. This mean that a light aerobic workout (or other form of exercise which increases heart rate) for 20 minutes will keep a slightly elevated heart rate for 20 minutes after you finish your workout. The same is true for other time periods for longer than 20 minutes; 30 minutes increases the heart rate for 30 minutes after you finish, etc.

When I say exercise that increases the heart rate, you will need to use common sense. Lifting weights to build muscle or slow walks do not do this. Exercises that work are brisk walks, aerobics, jogging, running, jumping on a trampoline, etc. Of these, the exercise that seems the easiest, but is actually the hardest to keep up for the duration of 20 minutes, is jumping on a trampoline.

Your dermatologist will tell you that, because the skin is the largest body organ, it reaps more benefits from exercise than the rest of your body parts. Aside from the benefits from increased circulation mentioned above, Exercise benefits the skin by creating the right environment for your skin to build collagen. Collagen fibers are the fibers that support your skin and help wrinkles from appearing. This is why you see women who work out regularly look so much younger.

As we age, the cells that produce collagen in out bodies slow down. The result of this is skin that appears loose and is dry and wrinkled. By adding a regular exercise routine, you skin gets the nutrients and oxygen it needs for these bells to perform their best. When these cells function better, your skin looks much more youthful.

Regular exercise will eventually help your muscles to relax. This seems odd since the first affects of exercise are a tightening and toning process that gives better shape to them. However, with continued exercise, your muscles pass this stage and learn to relax. Through this relaxation, anger expression lines and crows feet will begin to soften and future lines will be slower in coming. In other words, exercise is a great, cheap anti aging solution for your skin as well as the rest of your body.

Keep in mind that you cannot tone and build facial muscles like other body muscles. While there are fads concerning facial exercise and facial calisthenics, pleasing effects (if there are any) are only temporary. In fact, over time, facial exercise can actually make more expression lines and wrinkles appear.

No matter who you are of what your skin condition is, regular exercise will benefit your skin. Whether you have the acne and breakouts the younger skin is prone to or you have the lined, dry skin that older skin is prone to, exercising is going to help correct your skin related problems. One thing that you have to remember is that, without plenty of fluids (purified water and natural organic juices), your skin will not reap near as many benefits or reap them as quickly as it could.

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