What ages you most? It may not be wrinkles or your gray hair, but dark circles under your eyes. As people age, the skin becomes thinner and you lose your collagen, sometimes enhancing the appearance of blood vessels beneath the eyes and making the area appear darker.
Causes:
· Inadequate sleep.
· Allergies.
· Dehydration.
· Atopic dermatitis (eczema), Asthma.
· Heredity — dark under-eye circles can run in families.
· Lifestyle factors, like physical or emotional stress, smoking, or chronic alcohol use can take a toll on your appearance.
· Nasal congestion (which can dilate and darken the veins that drain from your eyes to your nose).
· Pigmentation irregularities — these are a particular concern for people of color, especially blacks and Asians.
· Rubbing/scratching your eyes.
· Sun exposure, prompting your body to produce more melanin, the pigment that gives skin its color.
· Thinning skin and fat loss and collagen — common as you age — can make the reddish-blue blood vessels under your eyes more obvious.
· Drug abuse.
Prevention:
1. Get your beauty sleep. Get plenty of sleep nightly as lack of sleep tends to cause the skin to become paler (thus increasing the appearance of darkness under your eyes), and this reduces circulation.
2. Before going to bed at night, remove all your eye makeup. If you don't, when you get older, your eyes can look much more tired on daily basis.
Determine how much sleep you need (it’s usually 7-9 hours per night).
Alcohol and drugs can adversely affect the quality of sleep. Abstain from such products or use them only in moderation for best results.
3. Treat your allergies. Allergies are a common cause of skin discoloration under the eyes.
4. Fix nasal congestion. A blocked nose can result in dark circles under your eyes because the veins around your sinuses are darkened and dilated.
5. Eat well. Eat a healthy, balanced diet, drink plenty of water and also take vitamins. A whole host of cosmetic related problems can be attributed to vitamin deficiencies. Dark circles and eye puffiness are often attributed to lack of vitamin K or inadequate antioxidants. Also, a deficiency in B12 (usually anemia-related) can result in dark circles.
6. Reduce salt intake. Excess salt causes the body to retain water in unusual places. This can result in puffy eyes. Too much salt can also affect your circulation and cause the blood vessels under the skin to appear bluer.
7. Examine your smoking habit and decide to quit.
8. Relax. Relaxing might help remove sources of stress and anxiety that are preventing you from eating, sleeping and resting properly. In fact, relaxing enough will help the sensitive skin beneath your eyes to improve as you feel less stressed and more at ease.
9. Avoid rubbing your eyes.
10. Wear dark sunglasses to protect your skin from melanin changes.
So if you are taking proper care of your eyes from your early twenties or even teens, you can easily prevent them. Remember prevention is easy than curing.