ERE tips to maintain a youthful appearance

[lightfruit55]

I am actually considering dropping a few Ks on medical aesthetics to correct 2 small sun spots which have surfaced of late, to the chagrin of my ERE sense. While vanity is generally not an ERE pursuit, there's something aspirational about trying to maintain a youthful appearance.

What are some ERE tips to maintain a youthful appearance? The basics would be:
- Avoiding the sun as much as possible (staying indoors as much as possible during the day, using UV umbrella, applying sunscreen)
- Drinking lots of water
- Exercising (good mix of high intensity, steady state cardio and stretching) (avoid excessive exercising)
- Good nutrition (eat more anti-aging foods, avoid processed food)
- Skincare routine (I have a multi-step skincare routine but haven't gone down the rabbit hole of retinoids. For those who are experienced in this field, any tips?)
- Face massage (improve circulation and stimulate pressure points)
- Sleep (at least 8 hours of sleep)
- Avoid high levels of stress (choose work and design life in such a way so as to limit high stressors as much as possible)
- Wear brighter colours (I used to wear darker colours when I was younger. But I recently started changing my wardrobe to lighter and brighter colours and realised that it makes me look a lot more youthful!)
- Eyebrow shaping
- Protect neck and hands (moisturising neck and hands, wearing gloves while doing dishes)

How about higher level ERE tips? I'm thinking maybe higher level skincare knowledge or diet knowledge? Or any vitamins/supplements to recommend? Or even simple medical aesthetic procedures.....?

[Dream of Freedom]

Don't underestimate the role of charisma and just being playful. Being fun seems youthful.

[ertyu]

one you're missing is intermittent fasting/time-restricted feeding/CRON(calorie restriction optimal nutrition).
of the uv-damage factors you've listed, sunscreen matters most. staying indoors all the time and being swathed like a mummy while outside is going over the board imo as it limits one's enjoyment in other possible healthful activities such as hiking and being in nature.

if you want to make youthful appearance your priority (why? maybe the top ERE thing to do here is to sit down and consider why it is that youthful appearance is so important to you and go down -that- rabbit hole instead of the rabbit hole of cosmetics and medical procedures) -- in either case, if you do decide that a youthful appearance is a top priority, the ERE solution would probably be to open a business which supplies your chosen procedures to others and thus subsidizes cost of these procedures to you (you don't have to run the business, you can hire someone, the size of the profits will not be a top priority as you have sufficient savings from your income already).

in either case, before any of that, i'd go back to introspecting on the importance of youthful appearance vs. longevity, vitality, fitness, and other ways to enjoy life. maybe sometimes the most ere thing we can do is square with our egos and with the fact that time comes for us all.

[7Wannabe5]

It's very easy for me to routinely spend less than $20/month in the Girl Stuff column on my tracking sheet and/or totally neglect the Beauty, Style, and Charm category in my Renaissance Lifestyle design. So, currently, I would say that I look more like an overweight, teenage cashier at a rural Walmart than most women my age.

However, I have gone through phases where I attempted to make Beauty, Style and Charm a priority within tight budget. One book that I found quite helpful, although it is likely now rather out of date with some of its advice, is "How Not to Look Old: Fast and Effortless Ways to Look 10 Years Younger, 10 Pounds Lighter, 10 Times Better." Some nuggets I remember would be to color your hair to match whatever your natural color was when you were 2 years old, pay a lot of attention to under-garment layers, and stop wearing t-shirts with pictures and writing on them.

I also had a couple aesthetic procedures done in my mid-40s which have held up pretty good. I didn't pay for them myself, because this was when I was going through a dysfunctional phase when I decided that I would literally make men pay for anything insulting they said about my looks, after an occasion when I seriously lost my temper and then burst into tears when the man I was dating made a comment about my raggedy nails while we were out for dinner. The next day I was just like "I made an appointment at the nail salon. It will be $80." and opened my palm for his credit card. Since most of the men I date are at least moderately frugal, this "Put up or shut up" practice worked pretty well for me for awhile, but now I'm more emotionally differentiated, so it's no longer necessary.

Anyways, if you are considering making such an investment yourself, I would note that I do think it is a better deal to just throw down for a more expensive procedure than to spend $30/month every month on pots of youth goo which only provide very marginal benefit. You could afford $9000 worth of major procedure @4% if you forgo the montly expense of the goo.

[Frita]

Yes to many above tips, just adding something new. Acceptance can really help too. Example: My hair is frizzy and graying. Oh, well, I braid it and appreciate living where most middle-aged women do not dye their hair.

[chenda]

@lightfruit - I think you've covered the key ones. I would also add good posture, lots of middle age women seem to start to stoop and dodder about.

Men can retain youthful appearance by keeping their hair. Finasteride is an effective drug to stop (or significantly slow down) male pattern baldness. It's had a lot of negative publicity over alleged side effects, but it's cheap and generally very safe.

[Sclass]

I cannot explain why, but the Covid vaccine (I had the Moderna) temporarily took a few years off my appearance. A week after the first shot my skin changed. Texture, tone and wrinkles looked more youthful. I kept it to myself but people started noticing. First my wife, then my friends started commenting and asking if I was having some kind of cosmetic procedure done on my face.

Didn’t do anything for anyone else I know.

I didn’t feel any better but I sure looked different. It seemed to wear off after a couple of months and boosters didn’t bring the youthful look back. Must have been some short lived immune reaction.

[rube]

- Avoiding the sun as much as possible (staying indoors as much as possible during the day, using UV umbrella, applying sunscreen)

Well, yes protect against the UV, but some sun (and being outdoors) is also good for your overal health. Need a healthy balance.

[Jean]

I've seen a father and son pair, son was in late 40s, father was 70. Son looked older than is father. Smoking and being overweight are a great way to look older.

[J_]

the most ere thing we can do is square with our egos and with the fact that time comes for us all.

+1, and, if it suits your character, see the wit in life.

[AxelHeyst]

1. I suspect it's easier for men to say "just roll with the wrinkles". Youthful looks play a greater role in life design for women than men because cultures (like, all of them? since ever?) place more emphasis on female looks than men. It impacts implicit/unconscious socialized respect, power, influence, etc, and thus has a potentially higher importance to a woman's WoG than a mans. I'm not making value judgements here, just pointing out how the societies we live in seem to work. (In contrast men will be judged unconsciously by most people not by how youthful they look, but by how capable they appear to be to beat another man to death with their bare hands. Also how capable they appear at fixing the car if it breaks in the middle of the desert.)

If you have a WoG uninfluenced by other people's perceptions (e.g. by embracing a more philosophical/DGAF approach), or a WoG that is *positively* impacted by flaunting/edgeplaying with social perceptions, then there you go. Otherwise, appearances can certainly impact one's WoG and time and attention invested can be worth it. I think my WoG would be improved by one or two more notches invested in appearance than I current expend (a project currently on the shelf)... if I were female, I suspect my WoG would call for three or four more ticks.

2. UV exposure it a pet peeve of mine. I live in one of the sunniest places in the world. I avoid sunscreen as much as possible due to the precautionary principle. Cloth fabric works quite well. People whose cultures are adapted to sunny places e.g. the middle east cover every square inch of skin with loose light fabric. Be like those people! Especially if your genes spent the last hundred generations in northern europe or somewhere similarly cloudy.

Old timers of European stock have skin like an old shoe because it wasn't cool to wear hats, sunglasses, or sleeves.

3. Sex has got to make people look more youthful, right?

4. I think 'high level ERE tips' is probably an oxymoron? All the individual actions like UV protection, nutrition, etc are necessary actions but they're at the lower level. The higher level is the level of whole-system integration. A low-stress lifestyle with good nutrition, plentiful sex, healthy relationships, avoidance of environmental toxins, and sleep and etc etc is the primary slam dunk high level ERE move here.

Another high level approach might be along the lines of "Get paid to travel." e.g. could you blog/youtube about the niche of frugal youth? The endeavor would involve learning a breadth of new skills that could be employed for other projects as well; the focus of having a whole project related to it would help focus your attention on it and if you kept at it, becoming an 'expert' on the topic in the position of both teaching and answering people's questions about it would almost certainly cause you to know this stuff frontwards and back; you'd be helping other people interested in the same thing; companies might send you their stuff gratis and even sponsor you (incidental income?); etc.

[7Wannabe5]

@AxelHeyst:

You are correct about looks being more important for females or anybody who prefers to be in their feminine energy. However, as we mature in our adult cognitive/emotional development and/or start deconstructing everything at a certain level of personal/social development, as with other qualities, "beautiful" becomes less something we "are" and more something we "have" and can hold at a distance. In other words, for better or worse, we become better capable of our own objectification. This is obviously not unrelated to the ability to claim ownership of ones own sexuality. However, one also becomes aware that emotional connection is not possible without re-engaging some level of naive vulnerability.

I used to work with a young woman who grew up living in hotels with her single father. One day I found her weeping at her desk, because she was newly married and had no clue how to cook, and she really cared about being able to do this for her husband. I thought "Poor thing." and gave her some tips. One of the problems with getting older is that you truly do not want to relive youthful agonies such as this, and you very well know how to avoid or transcend them, but it's kind of analogous to losing your youthful "hustle" or spark in the realm of purpose or masculine energy once you no longer need to hustle. In other words, in both realms what keeps you youthful is exposing yourself to risk, through some combination of taking a chance and giving a damn.

[IlliniDave]

There are quite a few supplements out there that are reputed to slow/undo aging of skin. Collagen peptides is one that comes to mind, so an ere-minded person might make a habit of making homemade bone broth.

Ertyu had a good one. Intermittent fasting promotes autophagy which can improve skin quality and over time help the body clear away loose skin.

Good general nutrition, exercise, and being active outdoors (while being mindful of excessive uv exposure) are all good. And getting good sleep, as you mention, is essential for everything.

There are some relatively new supplements appearing that can modestly "reverse" aging on a cellular level, but they aren't ere-friendly price wise, and I don't know if any of them really have any meaningful impact on skin appearance.

[jacob]

How people move gives some indication of cumulative bodily neglect after the age of 25 which correlates with perceived age given how most people don't make much of an effort. Without active effort people will become heavier, weaker, and slower, get stiffer joints, and start slumping more because of it. The cross-legged sit-to-stand test is good/objective indicator.

[chenda]

The cross-legged sit-to-stand test is good/objective indicator.

Is that literally sitting cross-legged and then standing?

[mathiverse]

Is that literally sitting cross-legged and then standing?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitting-rising_test and there are videos to see how people do it on YouTube.

[chenda]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitting-rising_test and there are videos to see how people do it on YouTube.

Thanks, I've just tried and can get down with a drop but can't get up without some bracing. I don't think I could have done better when I was 18.

[7Wannabe5]

My multi-millionaire friend could do that exercise no-handed and stand on his head, etc, when he was 79 (he was hyper-focused on money and fitness), and he did seem kind of youthful in his movement. However, he otherwise looked quite old. He looked too old to be attractive to me, even though I have dated a couple men who are now in their 80s. So, personal taste and mileage will significantly vary, but keeping some meat on the bones after a certain age, may not be a bad idea in terms of aesthetics.

I would also note that all things are relative, so if you want to look relatively youthful, hanging out with people who are even older than you works. Luckily for us early Gen-X females, there is almost an endless supply of Boomer men.

[chenda]

Yes living in a country or region with an ageing population probably helps to lift the definition of youthfulness. A 60 year old in the 1960s would have been perceived as relatively older than a 60 year in the 1990s, as yer 20 something baby boom hippies were now ageing en mass. Similarly Peter Townshend has confirmed he's glad he didn't die before he got old, though regrets not wearing ear plugs.

[jacob]

Thanks, I've just tried and can get down with a drop but can't get up without some bracing.

Only the hardcore can get up without any bracing. The question is how much bracing is needed. Hence how the score is calculated ...