[dropcap]O[/dropcap]ften, “beauty” is more or less used as just another word for “clothes and make-up.”
Of course, the clothes you wear, the way you do your make-up, how you style your hair, and all that sort of stuff does have a major impact on how you look (and feel). At the same time, though, a big part of “looking your best” has to do with the kind of lifestyle you lead and the general habits you follow.
Here are a few lifestyle tips that will help you to look your best, feel your best, and have a much happier day-to-day existence.
The natural beauty benefit of having healthy teeth is major – but even if your teeth are already quite damaged and aren’t in the best possible condition, having them repaired, touched up, or replaced by an expert dentist can help to completely overhaul your appearance for the better.
The bottom line is that we all spend quite a lot of time “noticing” each other’s teeth, in one context or another. If someone smiles, you will probably see their teeth. If they laugh, you’ll probably see the teeth. If they are having an animated discussion with you, you’ll probably see their teeth. And so on, and so on.
The thing is, having well-maintained teeth isn’t just a matter of looking your best (although it certainly does help with that), but it’s also a matter of staying healthy. Many serious and chronic infections and health conditions stem from untreated dental abscesses and cavities. In extreme cases, these conditions can even have lethal side effects.
Of course, there’s also the simple fact that when your teeth look better people will react to you better as a result, your confidence levels will be significantly higher, and you will feel better about life as a whole.
Keep your teeth in good condition and don’t put off dentist appointments
Get enough sleep, it’s a lot more important than you might think
When we are busy, or are looking for an opportunity to squeeze more episodes of an attention-grabbing Netflix show into our daily schedule, sleep is typically one of the first things that gets cut out of the picture.
For one reason or another, sleep can easily end up feeling like optional “leisure time.” That’s probably because when we are asleep we aren’t really “accomplishing” anything. The fact that sleep feels really good probably also makes us feel like it’s some kind of special “treat” that we can “spoil ourselves with” when we feel like it.
In reality, though, sleep is absolutely essential for overall health and well-being, on all sorts of different levels.
In his book, “Why We Sleep,” sleep scientist Matthew Walker points out that even just getting slightly less sleep than you need each night, for around a week, will massively increase your risk of all sorts of different chronic health conditions, and will cause so much trouble for your blood sugar levels that any doctor would classify you as “prediabetic.”
Getting only five or six hours of sleep a night can cause your quality of life to massively drop in all kinds of different ways.
As you can get properly guess, when you’re not sleeping enough and your health takes a blow, your looks take a serious blow, too.
The old saying “get your beauty sleep” makes a lot more sense when you consider just how important sleep is for repairing skin, regulating hormones, and all sorts of other processes in the body. And when it comes to well-being, everyone knows it doesn’t “feel” too good to be sleep-deprived on a regular basis.
You’ve probably heard that “stress kills,” and you might also have heard that your body’s stress hormone, cortisol, causes premature ageing when there’s too much of it hanging around for too long, and too often.
All of those things are true – but there is actually a serious difference between the kind of “stress” that you feel when you believe you are facing a worthwhile challenge that you can overcome, versus when you feel that you are facing a major catastrophe that you can’t overcome.
To put it simply, looking at obstacles in your life as “challenges” makes your psychological and physical reaction to them “healthier,” and keeps you from slipping into a deep sense of despair, at the same time.
With less of that chronic, negative, form of stress, you will consistently look and feel better, too.
Work on developing an optimistic mindset, and even look for different “challenges” to pursue – just as long as they are things that seem worthwhile, and that really benefit you in some way.
Choose to look at obstacles in your life as challenges, rather than catastrophes
Keep your house clean, and don’t spend too much time lounging around at home
There’s a good chance that you spend the majority of your free time cooped up in your own house – maybe laying in bed or lounging around on the sofa.
Believe it or not, though, your home may be one of the least healthy places for you to consistently hang out – at least, if you aren’t totally on top of the cleaning and dusting.
There is a condition known as “Sick Building Syndrome,” where people get seriously ill from the air in their own homes. Simple dust, mould, pet fur, and small amounts of gas from household appliances can actually turn your home into a toxic environment – meaning, an environment that will trigger a chronic stress response in your body and make you look and feel pretty bad.
Keep your house clean, consider getting an air quality monitor and air purifier, and get out and walk around in the great outdoors as often as you can.
We all mirror our friends, family members, and associates in various ways, whether we realise it or not.
Some research has even found that people who are friends with overweight people are more likely to become overweight themselves.
Of course, if all your friends smoke and engage in poor health habits that make them look and feel bad, it stands to reason that you would feel more pressured to participate in those activities, too.
Try making friends with people who have healthy habits and a positive outlook on life, instead.
