Dr Andrea is a board-certified dermatologist who shares educational skincare content on her YouTube, TikTok and Instagram pages under the username @drdrayzday. She shared one of her “anti-ageing secrets to take years off your face” which “doesn’t involve buying anything”.
Instead, she says you can “take eight years off your face and body” simply by engaging in regular exercise.
In her video, which has amassed over 314,000 views at the time of writing, Dr Andrea said: “Something that you can do to keep your skin looking healthy, to really put the breaks on the ageing clock.
“If you have followed any number of my videos you know I continue to advertise the importance of lifestyle factors when it comes to keeping your skin healthy, delaying the visible signs of skin ageing and ultimately keeping your total body healthy long time.
“Today we are going to be doing a deep dive into one of the most important things you can do and that is exercise.
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“Exercise increases blood flow as well as lymphatic flow and that helps with bringing in nutritive growth factors to help with reparative processes. It helps just to improve overall skin tone, you will look more radiant, and more youthful. It helps with draining fluid, that’s going to help reduce puffiness and swelling.”
Andrea explained how, as we age, our skin begins to deteriorate in several ways. This includes losing some of the “supportive frameworks in the deeper layers of the skin referred to as the dermis”, which leads to wrinkles and fine lines.
We also have slower recovery and healing from environmental stressors including ultraviolet radiation and pollution.
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However, according to the dermatologist: “Research demonstrates that people who exercise have better mitochondrial function than those who don’t. As we get older, if we are not sedentary, if we engage in regular exercise, we actually can possibly improve mitochondrial function.”
Studies looking at muscular function have found that those who exhibit a sedentary lifestyle may accelerate their rate of total body ageing, and Dr Andrea says this can be compared to the skin.
“These comparative studies would suggest that because these people who engage in exercise have a thicker dermis, they have better collagen integrity, than those who don’t,” she explained.
Leading a sedentary lifestyle can also age your biological clock. Dr Andrea said: “Being sedentary can create quite a discrepancy and we want to keep our biological age at least very close to our chronological age, if not a little longer, just to stay as healthy as longer.”
The best type of exercise to reduce the signs of skin ageing
While certain types of exercise offer different results, Andrea says it is hard to pinpoint just one form of activity to do. “Truthfully, there is not a study to point you to today this is the best type of exercise to do to keep your skin radiant, healthy and young as long as possible,” she said.
“But, a combination of weight and endurance exercise is likely going to be most beneficial for improving mitochondrial function and energy and metabolism. As you can imagine, yoga is going to be beneficial for lowering the cortisol, even more, helping with stress management.”
However, the bottom line is “there is no bad exercise”, instead the dermatologist says people should find something they like enough to regularly do.
“I adore running but many people detest running so don’t try and become a runner,” she explained. “I also really like walking and that is something I really encourage everyone who can walk to walk. It is very simple and you don’t have to do some complicated routine. Really, just getting in your 10,000 steps if you are able.”
