Necks can be a touchy subject.
The neck is an area of the body that ages particularly quickly. The good news is there are plenty of easy ways to deal with those wrinkles that don’t require expensive visits to a doctor.
A few simple daily modifications can help minimize neck wrinkles.
WRINKLE REASONS
Before we can find effective solutions to anything in life, it’s helpful to know the cause of the problem. Neck wrinkles are no exception.
Super simplified, there are two main reasons why necks age quickly: repetitive head movements and loss of proteins.
Okay, those are some words, but how are they relevant?
REPETITIVE Head MOvements
Necks are responsible for a lot of work. They hold up our heavy skulls and manage every head movement we make. Think about that level of wear and tear.
The repetitive movements we make with our heads form creases in our neck skin. Over the years, these creases get more and more defined.
LOSS OF PROTEINS
Healthy skin depends on many factors. But science points to two main proteins necessary for firm skin: collagen and elastin.
Collagen helps skin cells stay strong, while elastin keeps skin elastic. Because the skin on the neck is thin, it contains less collagen and elastin from the start.
wrinkle remedies
All the crazy things we do to ourselves on a daily basis also accelerate the aging process. We eat unhealthy food. We drink copious amounts of alcohol. We spend hours baking in the sun. We stress about pointless shit.
You may be thinking, “quitting those things isn’t easy.” And you’d be right. Fortunately, this isn’t a post about significant lifestyle changes. There will be no talk of diet revamps or morphing into sun-hating vampires.
Here are three easy ways to minimize neck wrinkles:
- Pay Attention To Your Posture
- Wrap Your Neck
- Drink Green Tea
Effective beauty remedies should address the issue from both inside and out.
1. pay attention to YOUR posture
Let’s start with the hardest one first, paying attention to your posture.
Why is this the hardest? Because humans are creatures of habit. It’s an overused saying, but it’s also true. We spend most of our day on autopilot. Doubt this? Try starting with the other armpit next time you’re shaving in the shower. Unless you’re intentionally thinking about it, you’ll default to whichever one you usually go for first. (I go left first.)
This autopilot mode can serve us well. It lets us complete mundane tasks easily while fantasizing about that trip to Europe. But it also has us unconsciously reverting to repetitive movements. And those repetitive movements cause deeper and deeper wrinkles.
WRECKED NECKS
We live downward-looking lives. I don’t mean we’re really negative. We just spend most of our day looking down. Whether we’re eating, cooking, reading, writing, walking, texting…you get the idea…our heads are almost always down.
The obsession with our phones is only amplifying this downward trend. Hey, I’m not knocking it. I’m glad you’re here. But the added hours of looking down are not helping our spines or our neck wrinkles.
Science shows that the further down the head tilts, the more pressure it puts on the neck. A head goes from weighing about 10 pounds in its neutral position to weighing 50 pounds when tilted down. That’s a huge difference! And that extra weight causes spine strain and wrinkle progression.
Look with your eyes, not with your head
Consciously paying attention to your posture can be tricky. But with practice, you can train yourself to notice. And the more often you notice, the more often you notice. It’s a non-vicious cycle.
Once you start recognizing that your head is tilted forward, it’s easy to recorrect. And before you know it, it will become a new habit. I train my posture by keeping my head in a neutral position as often as possible. I make it a point to keep things at eye level.
If I’m sitting, I prop my elbows on my knees, a table, or the arms of the couch. If I’m standing, I prop my elbows on my ribs. If I’m on my laptop, I raise my screen to eye level.
This might sound tedious. But you know what’s not tedious? Telling people your age and having them say, “oh, shit! I thought you were way younger.”
Look with your eyes, not with your head: A simple reminder that leads to a healthier spine and fewer neck wrinkles.
2. wrap your neck
A really easy way to treat and prevent neck wrinkles is by wrapping your neck. Wearing a neck wrap helps keep your neck moisturized, and it also reduces wrinkle development by limiting head movement.
Moisture Management
This isn’t the place to get into the various ways we rob moisture from our skin. Suffice it to say that excessive showering, poor nutritional intake, and environmental factors all contribute to dry skin. And dry skin means more wrinkles.
We usually supplement this missing moisture with creams and oils. But keeping skin moisturized can seem like a never-ending task. Rub on lotion, and ten minutes later it’s like it didn’t happen. (Why doesn’t eating ice cream work this way?)
Skin that’s exposed to the elements takes a harder beating than skin that’s protected. So, a key to retaining moisture is to keep a newly moisturized area covered. This stops the moisture from degrading due to friction and evaporation. Yes, even the air is sucking the moisture from your skin.
Minimizing movement
As mentioned earlier, head movements have a big effect on neck wrinkles. Paying attention to your posture is very helpful for neck wrinkles while you’re awake. But once sleep sets in, that habit becomes irrelevant.
Have you ever watched someone sleeping? I don’t mean in a Paranormal Activity kind of way. That’s super creepy. But if you’ve looked loving at your partner or child while they dozed, you might have noticed that their neck was squished during the process. Nearly every sleeping position results in a crunched-up neck.
Wearing a neck wrap can limit how much your head drops during sleep. And the added pressure can keep the skin on your neck smooth and flat throughout those resting hours.
Wrap Factors
There are tons of options for creating an effective neck wrap. But a neck wrap works best when comprised of two parts: the part that helps retain moisture, and the part that holds that part in place.
For the part that retains moisture, it’s essential to pick something that will be gentle on the neck skin. A current popular choice is self-adhesive silicone pads. I’m not a fan of these for several important reasons. TBD in another post.
If you want to forego the self-adhesive silicone pad (which I recommend), then you can build a neck wrap using silk or cotton cloth as the moisture retainer and an elastic bandage to hold that cloth in place. You know those Ace bandages you can get at Walmart for like $5? They work exceptionally well for all sorts of beauty hacks.
I feel like this goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. Don’t wrap the bandage too tightly. You’ll cut off circulation to your brain and pass out. You’ll also affect your lymphatic drainage system. Both of those are unhelpful to staying youthful.
3. Drink green tea
Yawn. How often have we heard that drinking green tea is great for the body? The problem is it’s an acquired taste.
Convincing people to trade in that luscious, creamy latte for a cup of bitter, yellowish-green liquid is a hard sell. But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can have both. Green tea only contains about a third of the amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee. So, it can become your afternoon sipper without ruining a good night of sleep.
The main reason green tea made it onto this short list is because of its effect on collagen and elastin. As mentioned earlier, those two proteins are essential for healthy, firm skin. Research indicates that “green tea supplementation increases the collagen and elastin fiber content…conferring an anti-wrinkle effect.”
Additionally, other studies show that green tea polyphenols are photoprotective. This means that green tea could prevent sun-induced skin disorders like photoaging and skin cancers.
These simple and inexpensive additions can make a dramatic difference to neck skin.
Paying attention to your posture, wrapping your neck at night, and adding green tea to your diet are easy ways to help prevent and treat neck wrinkles. Like all remedies, staying consistent is important.
Isn’t finding natural solutions so rewarding?