You probably know of all the harm smoking does to your health and what effects it can have but do you all the physical effects of smoking? Smoking can very badly affect your skin and physical features. Just after a year or two of smoking your teeth will become yellow, your hands and nails will become stained and your overall face will start losing that healthy and fresh look.
However, quitting smoking can reverse a lot of the damage that smoking would have done to you in years. Before we show skin before and after quitting smoking pictures, let’s discuss how your skin will improve after you quit smoking, let us discuss how smoking damages your skin:
Side Effects of Smoking on the Skin:
We all know the effects of smoking on your internal organs but it can harm our physical well-being just the same. Damaged and stained teeth, worsening skin conditions, hair loss, psoriasis, and slow wound healing are some of the most common side effects of smoking. Smoking can cause you to start developing lines around your lips, age spots, and all the signs of aging early on than the non-smokers. Some of the most common ways smoking can damage your skin includes:
1. Premature Aging:
While the wrinkles may not develop overnight, a smoker will start them soon enough than non-smokers. All the premature signs of aging like wrinkles on your forehead, around your lips, crow’s feet under your eyes, sagging and droopy skin, and losing elasticity will show up on a smoker’s face. The toxins produced by tobacco can easily affect the elasticity and production of collagen in your skin, which is responsible for making your skin appear supple and firm. After your skin starts losing elasticity, it will start sagging and you will start developing wrinkles all over your face. You will start appearing older than you.
2. Poor Skin Tone:
Smoking deprives your skin of getting the oxygen it needs to breathe, it constricts the smallest blood vessels and the oxygen supply becomes limited. This is why smokers usually have pale skin. It also produces more melanin which can cause the darkening of the skin. Overall, a smoker’s face will have uneven skin tone, dark spots, and a grayish complexion which is due to discoloration. Not only the face, but smoking will also affect the skin on your hands, especially your fingers and nails. They will start becoming yellow or darkening.
3. Sagging Body:
The toxins and nicotine in the cigarette will not only cause your face’s skin to sag but it will affect your entire body, especially your upper body. Your arms and breasts will start sagging and become droopy, affecting your whole figure. Around 4000 chemicals are present in tobacco smoke and most of them destruct the collagen which results in loss of elasticity. Your smooth and tight skin starts sagging and losing its strength. Second-hand smoking can also cause these effects.
4. Skin Cancer:
Smoking can cause at least 5 to 6 types of cancer and one of the most common ones that are directly affected by smoking is skin cancer. Squamous Cell Carcinoma (SCC) is a type of skin cancer that occurs in the top layer of the skin, smokers are associated with the highest risk of developing this cancer. Smokers are three times more likely to develop this cancer than non-smokers due to the toxins they breathe day and night.
Benefits of Quitting Smoking:
No matter how many years you spent smoking, your body can still recover from it to a high extent. An immediate benefit of quitting smoking includes a lower risk of heart attack and easy breathing. Quitting smoking will also make your skin start looking healthier and you will look younger than you used to. Some common benefits of quitting smoking on our skin are:
1. Slow Aging Process:
Your collagen production will go back to normal within a few months and your skin will start tightening and smoothing out. It will also start creating vitamin C which will start making your face look brighter and clear. Although you will not get rid of all the wrinkles you have developed but some of the shallow ones may start disappearing after a while. You can also take help from products like retinol or anti-aging creams to further slow down the aging process.
2. Proper Skin Coloration:
The improved oxygen levels of your skin will help you get glowing skin and the discoloration that appeared due to smoking will start fading off soon. The melanin production will return to normal levels and the dark spots and uneven skin tone will disappear, leaving your skin looking healthy and clear. Within a few months, you will regain the natural color of your skin and the staining on your fingers and nails will start wearing off too when your skin starts getting proper nutrients and oxygen. Just after six months of quitting smoking, your skin will regain its vitality.
3. Skin Cell Turnover Increases:
As your skin starts repairing itself, the turnover of skin cells will increase. The nicotine stops the oxygen from getting into our dermis, the inner layer of skin, which prevents the formation of new skin cells and causes dried and discolored skin. After quitting smoking, the dermis will start creating new skin cells and the skin will start looking healthier and fresher. Healthy skin will help you combat environmental damage and keep you looking younger for more years.
4. Prevent Further Damage:
When you smoke, you pucker your lips and hollow your cheeks to inhale, and squint your eyes to avoid getting smoke in them. This causes so many wrinkles all over your face, that you even develop the smoker’s line, which is the vertical line surrounding your lips. Quitting smoking will prevent further wrinkles from forming and you might be able to get rid of the wrinkles that have appeared.
The sooner you quit, the more easily your skin will bounce back. Quitting has almost immediate side effects on physical and internal well-being. Your risk of cancer starts decreasing, your skins start tightening, the risk of heart attack starts falling and your lungs start cleaning. The minute you quit; you choose a healthy life so make your decision quickly to regain your best features and avoid early aging.