Your Skin — The Biggest Part of You

How often do you think about your skin? Not what it looks like, not what it feels like, not how smooth or youthful it may or may not be. But thinking about and appreciating the incredibly important role it plays in protecting your inner body – vital organs, muscles, skeleton, nervous system – from the outside environment. 

Your skin is the biggest part of you. It’s your “coat of armor,” shielding you from pollutants in the environment, keeping out the bad things (like dust, germs, and allergens) and keeping in the good things (like moisture). It’s the body’s largest organ, yet it’s so easy to take it for granted.

Learning and caring more about your skin will lead to pronounced benefits to overall health and vitality. The earlier you start investing in good skin care habits, the greater the long-term benefits – and it is never too late to start. By “good skin care habits,” we mean the basics – learning the best ways to consistently cleanse, hydrate, moisturize, and protect the skin and applying what you learn in daily life.

The keyword here is consistently. We all know that “attractive woman in her 50s” with still-glowing, vibrant skin tone. Ask her secret, and she says something like, “I never go to sleep for the night with makeup on, ever.” Even after late night soirees or long workdays, she went to sleep with a clean and moisturized face. She is one who cares about maintaining great skin. For her, facial cleansing, hydrating, and moisturizing is a twice-a-day rule, rarely ignored. That routine pays off in vibrant skin, and you know it when you see it.

It doesn’t have to be a complicated or expensive regimen to get results, either. It takes about 10 minutes twice a day, and there are a number of low-cost skin care products that can do the trick. The most important thing is to establish a twice-daily skin care regimen and take it seriously every day.

If you smoke, the next best thing you can do for your skin is stop! It’s rare to see a smoker with great skin, and the nasty effects compound over time. Smokers’ skin ages and wrinkles more rapidly, losing tone and vibrancy. Stop smoking to grow healthier skin!

Finally, your skin is an indicator of your overall health. Whether it be diet, stress, or even illness, your skin is one of the first ways your body can alert you about internal changes that are happening.

Links to help you know your skin:

Skin care and skin health topics from VisualDxHealth
Information from the American Academy of Dermatology
The Dermatology Blog