Aging is a common process that we all experience at some point. While aging is inevitable, there are steps we can take to slow down the process and keep our skin and bodies looking youthful and healthy. An important way to achieve this is by using anti-aging natural remedies. Natural remedies are a great way to combat aging without harsh chemicals or invasive procedures.
In this article, we’ll explore some of the best natural remedies for anti-aging and how you can incorporate them into your daily routine.
Aloe Vera
Aloe Vera is a versatile plant used for centuries to treat various skin conditions. It is high in antioxidants, which help to protect the skin from free radical destruction. Free radicals are unsteady molecules that can cause damage to the skin and contribute to aging. Aloe Vera also contains enzymes that help to exfoliate the skin, removing dead skin cells and helping cell turnover.
To use Aloe Vera for anti-aging, simply apply the gel from a raw Aloe Vera leaf to your skin. Leave it on for 15-20 minutes before rinsing it with water. You can also blend Aloe Vera gel with other natural ingredients( honey or coconut oil) to create a moisturizing and nourishing face mask.
Green Tea
Green tea is another powerful antioxidant that can help to combat aging. It contains catechins, potent antioxidants that can help protect the skin from UV damage and reduce inflammation. Green tea also contains caffeine, which can help to tighten the skin and reduce puffiness.
To use green tea for anti-aging, simply add a tea bag to hot water for some minutes and let it cool. Once it’s cooled, apply it to your skin with a cotton ball or pad. You can add green tea to your daily skincare routine using a green tea-infused toner or moisturizer.
Avocado
Avocado is a nutrient-rich fruit that is packed with vitamins and minerals that are important for healthy skin. It contains vitamins A, C, and E, all potent antioxidants that can support protecting the skin from free radical damage. Avocado also contains healthy fats, which can help to keep the skin moisturized and supple.
To use avocado for anti-aging, simply grind a ripe avocado and apply it to your skin. Leave it on for 10-15 minutes before rinsing it with water. You can also create an avocado face mask by mixing avocado with other natural ingredients like honey or yogurt.
Turmeric
Turmeric is a spice used in Indian cuisine but has powerful anti-aging properties. It contains curcumin, a potent antioxidant that can help reduce inflammation and protect the skin from free radical damage. Turmeric also has antibacterial properties, which can support to keep the skin clear and prevent breakouts.
To use turmeric for anti-aging, mix a teaspoon of turmeric with a teaspoon of honey and apply it to your skin. To create a nourishing face mask, you can mix turmeric with other natural ingredients like yogurt or coconut oil.
Coconut Oil
Coconut oil is a natural oil brought out from the coconut’s meat. It is rich in fatty acids and antioxidants, which help to nourish and protect the skin. Coconut oil contains lauric acid, which has antimicrobial properties that can help protect the skin from harmful bacteria and viruses.
Applying coconut oil to the skin can help reduce fine lines and wrinkles. Coconut oil also helps to hydrate the skin, making it look younger and more supple. In addition, coconut oil has anti-inflammatory properties, which can help reduce redness and inflammation caused by skin conditions such as eczema and psoriasis.
Rosehip Oil
Rosehip oil is a natural oil that is brought out from the seeds of the Rosa Canina plant. It is high in vitamins A and C, both potent antioxidants that can help protect the skin from free radical damage. Rosehip oil is also rich in essential fatty acids, which can moisturize the skin and reduce fine lines and wrinkles.
Antioxidants
Antioxidants defend the cells from damage caused by free radicals. Free radicals are unsteady molecules that are produced in the body as a result of various metabolic processes. They can destroy cells and contribute to the aging process and the development of certain diseases, such as cancer.
Antioxidants can be found in several natural sources, including fruits and vegetables like berries, leafy greens, and citrus fruits. They can also be found in nuts, seeds, and grains. Some of the most effective antioxidants include vitamins C and E, beta-carotene, and selenium.
A diet rich in antioxidants can help slow aging and reduce the risk of developing certain diseases. In addition, topical antioxidants can help protect the skin from damage caused by free radicals, reducing the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.
Omega-3 Fatty Acids
Omega-3 fatty acids are essential fatty acids that are essential for good health. Sources of omega-3 fatty acids are fatty fish such as mackerel, salmon, sardines, nuts, and seeds such as walnuts and flaxseeds.
Omega-3 fatty acids have been shown to have several health benefits, including reducing inflammation, improving heart health, and promoting brain function. In addition, they may help slow the aging process by protecting the skin from damage caused by UV radiation and reducing the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.
Hyaluronic Acid
Hyaluronic acid is a natural substance in the body, particularly in the skin and connective tissues. It is a main extracellular matrix component, providing skin support and structure.
Hyaluronic acid is important for the skin, including improving hydration, reducing fine lines and wrinkles, and promoting skin elasticity. It is often used in skincare products as a moisturizer and anti-aging ingredient.
Vitamin C
Vitamin C is an impressive antioxidant that is essential for good health. It is found in various fruits and vegetables, including citrus fruits, berries, and leafy greens.
Vitamin C has been shown to have several importance for the skin, including reducing the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, promoting collagen production, and improving skin texture. In addition, it may help protect the skin from damage caused by UV radiation.
Resveratrol
Resveratrol is a polyphenol found in various natural sources, including grapes, peanuts, and red wine. It has been shown to have many health benefits, including improving heart health, reducing inflammation, and promoting brain function.
Resveratrol may also have anti-aging properties, as it has been shown to protect cells from damage caused by free radicals and help collagen production. In addition, it may help protect the skin from damage caused by UV radiation.
NourishDoc: Hello, everyone. Hope everyone is enjoying their week today. Well, anti-aging, right? All of us don’t want to age at all. But how naturopathic medicine can help all of us is the topic today with Dr. Anne. Dr. Anne, a naturopathic physician joining me, live from Canada. She focuses on women’s health, aesthetics, pain management, and many health concerns. Welcome, Dr. Anne.
Dr. Anne: Hi, how are you?
Anti-Aging & Role of Naturopathy in it
NourishDoc: Thank you. So, let’s talk about obsession with anti-aging and then the role of naturopathy in that. We’ll go into more detail on specific therapies you use.
Dr. Anne: Yeah, of course. So, as everyone talks about anti-aging and doesn’t want to age, women are always trying to slow that process down. But we find that all naturopathic medicine can help because the way we look and our skin reflects our health. So, the healthier we are inside, it will reflect outwardly. So, when we’re talking about anti-aging with our patients, we do have specific procedures that we’ll discuss today.
However, we also want to include a holistic approach, including talking about our sleep, how much water we’re all getting, and what foods we eat. Of course, what we’re doing to our skin, our suncare, so it’s bigger than just the procedures. However, the procedures help as well, and they’re super fun. The main thing for skin health will be how much you sleep.
So, we all need the minimum; scientifically, all our evidence shows there are six hours of sleep at night, most people feel best around seven to 8 hours of sleep, and the idea of getting your best amount of sleep is to create a sleep schedule, so that you go to bed around the same time every night, and get up around the same time every day, that when your body will feel the best.
It’s so simple that we forget it as adults, but if any of you have children with toddlers, you create a sleep schedule for them; they have their routine. They know when it’s nap time or bedtime, and they have their bath and get their snack or whatever it is. We need the same thing as adults, but we don’t do it for ourselves very often; creating a sleep routine would be great for our skin health, and then the amount of water that we drink is huge for skin health as well because as you mentioned, everything is coming from the inside out.
So, we also want to hydrate our skin from the inside out. People the goal everyone has heard is eight glasses of water a day, but many people don’t hit that. Most people drink coffee all day and not any water. However, we should be hitting at least half our body weight in ounces of water per day; for women, that ends up being around two liters. I always drink between three and four liters of water daily because I want to replace anything I lose if I exercise. You’re sweating, losing more water, of course.
Then, if you’re drinking diuretics or medications that help that can cause you to lose water, we want to consider all of those things. On average, we should be hitting two liters. I always go for 3 to 4 liters because I feel best with that; that helps improve your digestion by lubricating everything inside. The other thing we talk about is our diet.
So, eating healthy whole food is best for our body but also for our skin. When we take three grams of vitamin C daily, studies have shown that it gets to the dermal layer of our skin, which is not the skin you’re looking at when we look at each other; that’s our epidermis. It’s mostly dead skin cells, so we’re getting nutrition and hydration from the inside.
We want that vitamin C to get to the skin layer because that is one of the ingredients to build collagen. Building collagen is what we want to do and how we make new skin and create this anti-aging process. It’s more difficult to do after age twenty-five because, unfortunately, we stop making as much collagen as we break down.
After 25, we’re breaking it down more than we make it, and that’s part of our aging process. So, that’s what we focus on when dealing with skin and anti-aging. I want to go back and say that three grams of vitamin C a day needs to be in divided doses because you only absorb about one gram of vitamin C at a time. So if you took all three grams simultaneously, you’d be wasting much of it. You want to separate that throughout your day. You can focus on fruits and vegetables with high vitamin C content.
Facial Treatments in Anti-Aging
NourishDoc: Wow, that’s great. So when you’re eating an orange, eat two slices of orange and then lunch and dinner or something like that.
Dr. Anne: Yes, add in where you can, exactly. Okay. I was going to jump into the procedures because I alluded to the natural aesthetic way we try to work by building collagen. The two procedures that we have at our office are the micro pen and the PRP facials, and you’ve probably heard of PRP facials before. They’ve been talked about quite a bit as the vampire facial. That term is a trademark, so we can’t say it, but it is essentially the same thing.
PRP is your blood when doing a PRP facial or using the micro pen with PRP. So, that stands for platelet-rich plasma. We draw your blood out, and then we separate it. We put it in a centrifuge, and it spins very fast. So, the red cells are heavier, they fall to the bottom and we’re left with the platelet layer on top, which is the layer we’re using and injecting into the skin. So, when we’re doing that procedure, we numb up the skin, clean it off, and then inject the platelet-rich layer into the skin.
So, we’re putting it into different areas of the face. We can do your whole face, however. We can also do your hands, your neck, and the chest. We can do it anywhere you have skin if you want to and replace the collagen ingredients where we want them. We’re also tricking your body into making new collagen by causing damage to the skin. So, if you think of when you fall and scrape your knee, your body automatically knows, oh, she fell, she scraped her knee, we have to make new skin.
So, we’re doing that to your face, but on a micro level. So you don’t look beat up. You don’t look like you’ve fallen and scraped your face, but we’re creating the same type of healing cascade in the skin to trick your body into making more collagen, making your new skin. So, you look younger and fresher. So, the MicroPen, which can also be paired with the PRP, is a pen-like device with disposable needle tips.
So, twelve needles on end go up and down very quickly. We use the PRP or hyaluronic acid as the lubricant on your skin and then drive that into the skin using the pen. So, the difference between the pen and just the needle injections is that the pen is more superficial. It’s not going as deep because it only reaches up to 2.5 millimeters. We can go as deep as we need to when we inject. We can go to the bone, or we can stay very superficial as well.
So, our favorite way to do the treatment is to combine both of those. So, we’ll do some injections. Usually, people like the injections around their eyes. We can do into the tendons to hold up, work against gravity a little bit, tighten the tendons holding our muscles on our face, and then do the pen. So, we’re getting this superficial and deep layer treatment in one. Then we put much hyaluronic acid on afterward. So we’re rehydrating the skin, and then over time, we’re building that collagen. So, we look younger and fresher, and everybody loves that treatment.
What To Expect After Treatments
NourishDoc: Wow, this is amazing. So how’s the difference? Is it quite remarkable? The before and the after picture, and how long does it take for people to start looking younger?
Dr. Anne: So it depends on where everybody’s health is, of course, how much water they’re drinking, how healthy they are because when we’re using your blood, you’re only as good as your blood. So, we want to use as healthy blood as we can. So, that’s as healthy of you as we can. When we do the procedure, you look red at the time and slightly swollen because we’ve injected a bunch of fluid into your face.
It’s not a frightening, scary kind of thing. Your redness looks like a windburn or a sunburn, and you’re red for up to three days. I always do the procedure and keep working. That’s how not bad it is, and then what you notice is that night, you’ll go to bed. The next morning, people like it because they’re still slightly swollen. So, all of their fine lines are filled out, and then the liquid goes deeper. So, we absorb it more, and it begins to work.
Our collagen is built over three weeks. We want to do that procedure once per month for three to four months in the beginning, to build on our results. Then we separated so you could do it seasonally or once to twice yearly for maintenance, and we see beautiful skin results. Most people will say once they heal up, so in that first week, your skin is healing because we have, especially if you’ve done the micro pun, we’ve caused a whole bunch of micro-tears everywhere. So, your skin might feel dry for a few days, but then, it starts to feel like brand-new baby skin, and that’s where we get that glow and the building of the overtime that everybody likes.
NourishDoc: Wow. I can see the glow on your skin, beautiful skin.
Dr. Anne: Yes, we’ve been doing ours for a while.
NourishDoc: I need to fly to Canada to your office to complete this procedure. But how much does it cost? Not that we are selling anything here, but I never asked questions. I’m tempted to ask this question to many users out there who might be interested.
Dr. Anne: Of course. Absolutely. We do it by doing our micro pen treatment with hyaluronic acid for $275, So $275 plus GST. Then we do it paired with the high or sorry PRP, the injections, and the micro pen for $599 plus GST. So, PRP facials are more well-known and older in Europe. So, they are cheaper, and in North America, it’s newer, so it is more expensive on average. The price is around 1000 dollars typically.
NourishDoc: That’s very reasonable. Well, there’s much information for all the women out there. Thank you so much. Anything else you’d like to share before we wrap up today? It’s great information you shared, and many of us want to look at least and then do PRP facials and see how that works out.
Dr. Anne: Absolutely, It’s worth looking at. We have many happy patients that we do it with, and if you also didn’t know the PRP, as I said, it can be used anywhere on your skin. So, if you have scars, if you want to minimize your scarring, if you have acne scarring, or scar is anywhere in your body, you can inject it there to help reduce that. Also, if you’re dealing with hair loss, so hair thinning and hair loss, we can PRP into the scalp, which can help with hair regrowth.
How PRP Can Be Beneficial For Menopause & Other Issues?
NourishDoc: Wow. So, for many women, especially when they’re hitting menopause, hair thinning starts happening; that’s a completely different topic right now. I don’t want to go there. But on a high level, that could be another use case of PRP, not only the face, right?
Dr. Anne: Yes, exactly; lots of women, especially when they get stressed out, have low iron, which causes hair loss. So, once we get their nutrients and health back where we need them, we want to save PRP on the scalp if it works. So, we do always want to check to make sure they do have enough iron before we’re doing any types of those treatments, but stress is a huge cause; menopause, for some women, just aging in general, they have familial hair loss as well but men and women, we’ve done the injections for and with great success as well.
NourishDoc: Okay. Many men would like that too. All right, well, much amazing information. Thank you so much, Dr. Anne, for being with us. This is a quick 10-minute, fifteen-minute session. We do not offer medical advice, just knowledge and education; that’s the goal. I wanted to put a big disclaimer here because you gave amazing information. Yes, they keep supporting us. Thank you again, Dr. Anne, for your support. We are launching workshops. We’re launching a lot of amazing products this month. So, stay tuned, and thank you. Have a great week.
