If you get it right, making yourself look better can help you feel better more generally. When you start feeling better, you have more energy to tackle how you look. If you can get yourself into that positive feedback loop, everything will improve.
Unfortunately, this can also work the other way. When you look in the mirror and don’t like what you see, it can make you feel low. Once you’re feeling low, it becomes that much harder to make the effort to try to improve things. Finding both energy and motivation can be challenging.
Sometimes, just a few small steps can nudge you onto the right track, such as a proper meal or a good night’s sleep. It doesn’t have to take much. Often the hardest thing is getting started; once you’re en route, it becomes a lot easier.
There are specific things to consider when it comes to diet that can affect your appearance in particular. Vitamin A and vitamin C are essential to skin health. Sugary and acidic foods can be particularly damaging to teeth and your winning smile. Protein is necessary if you want to build muscle. Carbs get a bad rap for contributing to obesity, but you need some if you want to have the energy to work out and improve your appearance that way.
It can be surprising how much your physical wellbeing can affect your mental health. Get some exercise. We all know exercise is good for making you look better. It’s how you build muscle and get in the best possible shape. However, it also releases endorphins that give you a positive boost mentally.
That means making yourself feel better through exercise isn’t just about how it makes you look better. The actual act of exercise itself can be a powerful source of happiness, sometimes even euphoria. I know it can be hard to believe when a difficult session makes you feel tired and sore, but sometimes you’ll even feel more energized after exercise than you did before you put in all that work.
For the most thorough health routine, you need to be thinking about physical and mental health at the same time and how they can feed into each other. Making the effort with one can improve the other. Make the effort with both, and you’ll experience the best possible outcomes.
