Holistic Skincare from Within
You can’t just wash your face once a day, pat on some moisturiser and expect to look 18 forever. Effective skincare isn’t just about the products you use on a surface level, but also about how you take care of yourself from the inside. Sun damage, stress, unhealthy diets, and lack of sleep all play a massive role in how quickly you age, regardless of how much cream you have slathered on your face.
Load Up On Anti-Oxidants
Your body is made up of many different types of cells. As you age, your cells oxidise and the free radicals that arise from pollution, radiation, cigarette smoke and the like speed up the oxidation process. And worst of all? Free radical damage accumulates with age.
This is where anti-oxidants come in. They float around protecting you against the free radical bad boys. If you don’t have enough of these in your body, you’re just opening your doors wide for the free radicals to wreak havoc.
Eating a diet loaded with anti-oxidant rich foods like fruits and veggies can help you fortify your army of anti-oxidants.
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
Besides chowing down on anti-oxidant rich foods, what else can you do to boost your skin health from the inside out? We did a bit of digging online and found something very interesting – hyperbaric oxygen therapy. It’s a mouthful to say, but to our amazement, this alternative therapy has gone beyond skincare to work wonders on patients suffering from strokes and brain injuries to autism and chronic pain.
How it Works
The air you’re breathing normally consists of 21% of oxygen only, but in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, the air you inhale is 100% oxygen. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy uses this special chamber to increase the amount of oxygen in your blood by increasing air pressure to boost the delivery of oxygen to all your body tissues and cells. This is a completely non-invasive, drug-free, and safe treatment.
This therapy can help in conditions where the body tissues have suffered from reduced oxygen levels.
What science says hyperbaric oxygen therapy does for you
- Helps to reduce the visibility of wrinkles
- Stimulates collagen production (keeps your skin firm)
- Enhances ability of white blood cells to remove bacteria (helps treat infections better)
- Encourage new blood vessels to grow (helps heal areas of your body where blood flow and oxygen delivery is limited)
My Experience with Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
We talked to Be Urban Wellness, a multi award-winning holistic wellness centre, and set up an appointment to check out their Oxy Hydrate programme, a well-rounded skincare process that addresses issues within and without. The entire programmed included a sauna, a 3D Glow facial, an antioxidant drink, as well as a hyperbaric oxygen therapy session.
Step 1: Sauna
The programme started with a 20-minute sauna, which stimulates your blood circulation and helps the toxins leave your body through your sweat.
I hopped into the sauna with only a towel around me, and soon enough droplets of sweat started trickling down. Because I was afraid of my phone melting, I came in empty handed. Without my trusty sidekick, it seemed as if time had slowed dramatically. I was so used to being stimulated by the flashing lights on my phone that this sudden solitude was unimaginably boring. Five minutes passed and my mind started drifting. I started enjoying this little moment without technology in my face and took slow, deep breaths as the heat enveloped me. It was a moment of uninterrupted peace that I haven’t afforded myself in a long time.
20 minutes later, I stepped out of the sauna and embraced the cool air. I chugged down some water from a cooler thoughtfully situated right outside the sauna and took a shower. I felt utterly refreshed!
Step 2: 3D Glow Facial
After changing into a bathrobe, I was led to a comfy room with soft, soothing music for the one-hour 3D Glow facial, using Borghese products from Italy which merges natural ingredients with aromatic essential oils and mineralised waters to hydrate and soothe the skin.
Besides the typical cleansing, extraction, and mask, the facial also employs the help of RF heat to tighten the skin and optimise collagen regeneration. After the therapist beeped her way through one side of my face to distribute the RF heat, I looked in the mirror and the side which had been treated was distinctly firmer than the other side. My jawline was also more refined. I couldn’t be a happier girl.
Step 3: Oxygen Chamber
Right after the facial, I enjoyed an anti-oxidant drink made from berry extracts before heading into the oxygen chamber. This was a first for me and I was a bit jittery. The oxygen chamber looked quite out of this world, and I felt like I was stepping onto the set of Avatar. However, my therapist was very kind and explained the entire session to me, calming my fears. She also made sure that I didn’t have any preexisting conditions that could possibly cause complications in the oxygen chamber.
As I climbed into the oxygen chamber and laid down on the soft pillow, the therapist explained to me that I could hit on the panic button beside me if there’s any problem or if I needed to get out urgently. There were also sweets to suck on as the change in pressure can cause discomfort in your ears (similar to pressure you feel when a flight takes off and lands).
After ensuring that I was comfy, she zipped up the chamber and it started filling up with oxygen as the pressure increased. My ears started feeling full and to pop them I sucked on a sweet. When the oxygen chamber was fully set up, the therapist turned off the lights and left me to relax after making sure I was okay (there is an option to leave the lights on as well, but I was advised to take a nap).
I thought I’d have difficulty breathing, or that it’d be somehow annoying to lay inside the chamber, but it was just like laying in a normal bed. I played with my phone for a bit (yup! I could take it in this time!) but soon drifted off into a restful nap brought on by the rhythmic sounds of the machine running.
I was floating around in dreamland until dim lights came on and shortly after I felt the pressure of the chamber decrease. I awoke slowly, as the lights gradually got brighter and brighter. This was a far cry from the rude awakening I get every morning from my alarm clock, and instead of feeling groggy and annoyed, I felt well-rested and at peace.
The HealthWork.my’s Verdict
While I didn’t see immediate signs of anti-aging, my skin cleared up after the facial and oxygen chamber session and I slept really well that night. As with everything else, doing this only once isn’t going to make a lasting difference. The hyperbaric oxygen therapy has been scientifically proven to increase the oxygen within your tissues and stimulate the production of collagen, but without complementing it with a healthy diet, adequate amounts of sleep and exercise, you will still be nowhere near a healthy, happy body and mind.
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Be Urban Wellness is a multi award-winning wellness centre which takes a holistic and preventative approach to health through a combination of eastern healing therapy and western science.
Situated in Damansara Heights, the calming haven with its crystal chandeliers infinity pool overlooking the KL skyline whisks you out of the city and into an oasis of peace. Some of the notable facilities here include an oxygen chamber and a floatation tank (which helps you go into instant meditation and improves your creativity). BE Urban Wellness also offers up spa services, fitness facilities, a yoga and meditation studio, as well as nutriceutical therapy.
If you’re interested to learn more about BE Urban Wellness, fill in this form and BE Urban Wellness will be in touch to navigate you through the world of holistic wellness.