As important as health is, it can sometimes be easier to get caught up in our looks, rather than how we feel. Thing is, the two are strongly connected, and when you take care of yourself and your health, you often end up improving how you look, too. If you eat healthy, you lose weight and look healthy. If you sleep and de-stress, you look vibrant. Even subtle things, like your nail and hair quality can be affected by your health choices.
Most people know this, but it’s still sometimes easier to think about our looks than our health. That’s ok if you’re smart about it and approach it from a health-supporting standpoint.
For example, there are lots of ways to fix puffy eyes without 8 hours of sleep.
How? Puffy, dark eyes are caused by a number of things—first and most famously, not sleeping. It’s not the rest or lack there of, so much as lying on your back, which allows the area to drain more easily. If you don’t have time to sleep—try lying down anyway for a while. With cell phones being mini-computers, it should still be easy to be productive while you do it.
Drinking more water can also help—the area under your eyes gets darker when you’re dehydrated.
Wash your face (especially after applying perfume or hairspray) and do a sinus rinse or flood. The skin under your eyes is very thin, and has a lot of mast cells under it. Mast cells release histamine, and removing irritants can help prevent them from triggering. Wiping your face and rinsing your sinuses, which are connected to the area, removes irritants.
Another way those cells get triggered—inflammation. Lots of sugar in your diet, or maybe just an imbalance of Omega fatty acids can cause inflammation. Alcohol and excess salt are other dietary triggers for puffiness. The long term solution is a diet change, but in the short term a sinus rinse may also make it easier for your body to fight inflammation.
Beware: there are lots of specific eye creams and antihistamine creams that are recommended—but if you’re eyes are already irritated or the problem is they’re delicate, adding chemicals, etc. isn’t really going to help, and may even make things worse. You also have to be extra careful of not getting anything in your eyes, which could hurt your eyes or make things worse.
And unfortunately, age related sagging can’t be helped, because it’s caused by the muscles, not skin.
What are your under-eye secrets?
