Stop Smoking to Save Your Appearance

It’s now been known for a long time that smoking contains many damaging properties that can damage both your appearance and your health. From cancer to heart disease and strokes, the damaging effects of smoking appear to be endless. To get you on your way to better health, and to kickstart your stop smoking journey, this is what smoking does to your appearance.

Although some of these problems may never be evidenced by someone’s appearance, in the long-term a smoker is bound to encounter one of them.

The loss of hair

If you regularly smoke, then you are likely to lose some of your hair at some point.

Your hair grows from sac-like structures underneath the scalp, and these are known as follicles. However, these need oxygen, essential nutrients and vitamins/minerals in order to function correctly and trigger natural hair growth but, as previously discussed, smoking reduces the amount of oxygen and nutrients that get to your skin.

Causing hair to thin, which eventually leads to hair loss – follicles that don’t function properly disrupt the regular hair growth and loss cycle.

Problems around the eyes

Wrinkles around the eyes, commonly known as ‘crow’s feet’, are something that everyone will notice at least once in their lives; however, you are more likely to notice them prematurely if you’re a smoker. However, they develop earlier and go deeper when you smoke due to the heat from lit cigarettes and also as a result of a smoker squinting in an attempt to keep smoke out of their eyes.

It has also been reported that those who smoke cigarettes are four times more likely to report feeling unrested after a night’s sleep than non-smokers, which produces bags under the eyes – evidenced by a Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine study. The study, which involved the analysis of the sleep architecture of 40 smokers and a matched group of 40 nonsmokers who all undertook home polysomnography, also suggested that smokers spend less time in a deep sleep than non-smokers.

Author of the study, Naresh M. Punjabi, MD, PhD, FCCP at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, commented: “It is possible that smoking has time-dependent effects across the sleep period. Smokers commonly experience difficulty falling asleep due to the stimulating effects of nicotine. As night evolves, withdrawal from nicotine may further contribute to sleep disturbance.”

Damage to the skin

Your skin can often exhibit a dull, grey appearance after smoking for a number of years. This is because the amount of oxygen and nutrients that get to your skin is reduced, with the result being that your skin will age quicker. Premature aging of your skin by between 10 and 20 years will also occur from smoking.

Nicotine also causes vasoconstriction; this is a condition where blood vessels are narrowed, with oxygen-rich blood flow to the tiny vessels found around your face and other parts of your body limited. The problem of this condition will be seen if you suffer a wound, as vasoconstriction will take it longer to heal and result in scars appearing bigger and redder than those who aren’t affected by the condition.

Many of the 4,000 chemicals found in tobacco smoke will trigger the destruction of elastin and collagen in the body too. These are fibres required to give skin its strength and elasticity — lose them and sagging skin and deeper wrinkles will be the consequence, which will be seen especially around the inner arms, breasts and face.

If you smoke regularly, you will also develop smoker’s pucker; this is when smokers use certain muscles around their lips and dynamic wrinkles appear as a result. Combined with a loss of elasticity to the skin, the result in regards to appearance will be deep lines around the lips.