Madison beauty - Turn back the clock, naturally

You don’t necessarily need needles, surgery or expensive treatments to assist you in the fight against ageing. Put down the botox injection, we have some natural ways to turn back the clock and help you look younger for longer, and unlike a lot of procedures which are a quick fix, these suggestions if implemented properly into your lifestyle will prove to be long-term solutions.

Firstly it is necessary to identify with the things that are ageing you. Yes, you may be aware of many things that contribute to the ageing process, but one must understand why this is the case in order to fight against their onset. Once you have established what parts of your lifestyle are causing you to age faster than need be, you are able to go about altering yourself and your lifestyle accordingly.

Here are the habits that will age you, and ways you can curb them:

- Sun: it will age you. With the sun it’s a fine balancing act: you need enough to trigger the body’s production of vitamin D but not enough that it causes skin damage. Most skin changes such as wrinkles, mottled brown discolouration, scaly sun spots and skin cancers are caused by long-term sun exposure. So be sure to slip, slop, slap every day.

- Fat: if you are overweight, losing fat cells can take years off you’re appearance. Carrying excess body weight will put stress on your internal organs and increase the risk of weight-related diseases.

- Smoking: it’s no secret that smoking is bad for you, but this habit ages you both on the inside and the outside. In 2009, it was reported by the University of Iowa that there is a connection between Werner's syndrome, a rare hereditary premature aging disease, and cell damage that comes from smoking, both of which result in accelerated cell ageing. Solution? Put the cigarette down and enjoy the health benefits and youthfulness that comes with doing so.

- Sugar: Dr Joseph Mercola, earlier this year, reported interesting findings surrounding advanced glycation end products (AGEs) which are a complex group of compounds formed when sugar reacts with amino acids. This can occur both in the food you eat, and inside your body. Dr Mercola found that there is mounting evidence suggesting AGEs may be implicated in the development of the chronic degenerative diseases associated with ageing. Cut back on your refined sugar to prevent the onset of ageing.

- Stress: we have all heard someone state in stressful situations: “It’s making me go grey”, but what some may not know is that stress can make your pretty face age by over a decade. Divorce, family problems and work pressure can cause stress, anxiety and a lack of sleep which all stimulate an early onset of ageing, which will not only etch itself into your psyche, but also your appearance via the shortening and fraying of these DNA tips called telomeres. The good thing? This ageing can be halted and actually reversed by reducing or eliminating stress from your lifestyle.

- Alcohol: we all know that excess alcohol dehydrates you, but sadly water doesn’t undo the damage. Alcohol creates inflammation throughout the body including the skin, resulting in effects that far outlast dehydration. Alcohol causes small blood vessels in the skin to widen, allowing more blood to flow close to the skin’s surface. This leads to flushed skin and a feeling of warmth which can lead to broken capillaries on the face. The alcohol-induced dehydration also makes the skin more prone to fine lines, wrinkles, dullness, enlarged pores, discoloration and sagging. The lesson here? Limit your alcohol intake.

Words by Alette Winfield