Stress has often been cited as a major cause of premature aging and wrinkles, though wrinkles is caused by many other factors such as pollutants, sunlight exposure, smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, dehydration, improper diet, hormonal imbalance and aging.

How does stress affect your health and skin condition? - Stress can weaken the immune system, heart, nerves, skin, and affect our sleep patterns resulting in mental disorders, nervousness, anxiety, and poor skin conditions. Stress can cause hormonal changes, which might result in triggering the symptoms in people prone to acne, eczema, or other skin conditions. It is true that stress contributes to wrinkles, and speeds up the process of ageing.

Some people think that alcohol, smoking or drugs can relieve them from stress. Unfortunately, this adds to the problem instead of relieving you from stress, making you more susceptible to wrinkles. Drinking coffee, tea and soft drinks can aggravate rather than relieve stress, and will also give you more wrinkles. You can find details of this in the "Encyclopedia of Good Health: Stress and Mental Health."Some stress relieving drugs can help you to relax, but strictly under the doctor’s supervision. Drug usage may also aggravate stress. Cigarettes, alcohol and drugs may help stressed people feel better temporarily. Some chemicals in coffee, tea, soft drinks and cigarettes stimulate the adrenal gland, producing stress hormones.

So as days pass, you can find that they only create more stress by producing physical and emotional side effects.

Understanding the changes that occur while you age is important to better control the problems generated by those changes and to know how your body works in general. Aging is inevitable. But the external effects of aging, mainly wrinkles, don’t have to be so obvious on your skin. As not only stress causes the condition, reducing stress won’t completely cure it. But learning to better manage the stress in your life can reduce the premature wrinkle formation.

You can fight wrinkles by being smart. Take as many preventative steps as possible to avoid situations that create the opportunity for developing wrinkles. To help reduce stress and the impact of stress on our skin, do regular exercise and other activities such as swimming, yoga, dancing and meditation, avoid cigarette smoking and pollutants, avoid drinking alcohol, avoid drinking too much tea, coffee and soft drinks, opt for massage treatments, drink plenty of fresh and clean water, eat nutritive foods rich in antioxidants and essential fatty acids, use healthy chemical-free skincare products- moistures, sunscreen and anti-wrinkle creams and lotions, try to be optimistic and be happy in life, laugh a lot, get regular and quality sleep, and listen to good and relaxing music. squinting in the sunlight puts stress on the skin and can contribute to wrinkles, especially ‘crow’s feet’ around the eyes – avoid squinting by wearing sunglasses. In this way you can not only improve the condition of your skin but also your overall health.

Good quality anti-aging creams will give you firmer, radiant, and younger looking skin when used regularly. Though you have a lot of ways to keep your skin looking young and healthy, you can improve both your mood and your appearance at the same time if you can manage stress. Eliminate the stress in your life and improve your health and skin condition.