Before we dive into those factors, let’s review the Stages of Change Model.

We may need to change our behaviors and lifestyle factors to reap the collagen health and beauty benefits that we seek.

To succeed as we change, we need to understand the three crucial elements to change our behavior:

The Stages of Change are:

We may feel frustrated and disappointed about relapsing.

If you do relapse, then focus on identifying the triggers and temptations.

Recognize your barriers to success and what you can do differently next time.

Remind yourself about your goal and your commitment to change.

Consider sharing your goals and reasons for change with your friends and family, who will encourage you along your journey and may even join you too.

When we expose our skin to the sun, our body produces Vitamin D. Vitamin D helps us absorb calcium to build and maintain healthy bones.

Vitamin D also helps prevent cancer, depression, elevated blood pressure, heart attack, and stroke.

Sunshine exposure also regulates our circadian rhythm and helps us sleep better. For most people, 10 to 15 minutes of sun exposure can help soak in the benefits.

Unfortunately, ultraviolet radiation is one of the most hazardous external factors resulting in physical and chemical changes (1).

Too much exposure to the sun can damage our skin, lead to skin cancer, and reduce our ability to synthesize collagen.

In fact, ultraviolet radiation can cause our collagen to break down faster than usual, through normal aging.

This happens as the radiation penetrates our dermis and causes an abnormal buildup of elastin.

We then produce enzymes, which break down our collagen and speed the process of wrinkling and skin sagging.

We may experience enlarged blemishes, freckles, age spots, and discoloration.

Sun exposure is also the most critical risk factor for developing melanoma, a form of skin cancer that begins in the cells that control our skin pigmentation.

We can avoid the harmful effects of the sun by trying to avoid too much exposure to the sun in the middle of the day, from around 10 am to 3 pm.

If you go outside, then wear protective clothing, sunglasses, a wide-brim hat, and sunscreen.

Apply sunscreen every day, even on cloudy days. And try to stay in the shade when the sun is glistening its brightest.

Cigarette smoke contains more than 4,000 chemicals, including more than 60 carcinogens.

Many of these chemicals destroy our elastin and ability to synthesize collagen.

So, you may experience premature aging as your skin loses its firmness.

Repetitive squinting and lip pursing also lead to lines and wrinkles. Also, heat may dry and damage the surface of our skin.

Nicotine causes our blood vessels to narrow, which reduces the flow of our oxygen and nutrients to our skin cells.

Our body may increase the production of free radicals.

As discussed in our last article, if we cannot efficiently process and remove free radicals, we may experience oxidative stress.

Oxidative stress harms our cells, body functions and contributes to several alarming health conditions.

While there are foods that support our ability to synthesize collagen, there are also foods that destroy our collagen and age us faster.

Here are a few examples of foods to try to steer clear from:

What if you tried supplementing with a multi-collagen peptide power?

The supplements can absorb more efficiently to help boost collagen levels quicker.

Our bodies need to convert most collagen sources into simpler amino acids that we can then synthesize to create collagen.

Hydrolyzed collagen sources have been created to embrace the powers of amino acids that have already been broken down into smaller parts.

We can then efficiently synthesize and rapidly enjoy the collagen benefits we seek.

Multi-source collagen offers multiple benefits for more bang for our buck in a more efficient way.