Speaking of offensive lines.
Cheering for your favorite football team through the dramatic highs and lows can take a toll on your skin, leaving you with wrinkles that linger long after the Super Bowl.
Board-certified dermatologist Dr. Muneeb Shah warns of the dangers of “face fear” and explains how to mount a strong defense against it.
Facial fear can be a side effect of watching sports in general, but a Neutrogena survey found that 53% of Generation Z feel more nervous watching football than any other sport.
“If you're watching the game on TV or in person, and you're very focused, you'll end up squinting at your face a little bit and holding it that way,” Dr. Shah told The Post.
“And I always joke — you know when your mom used to say, ‘If you keep making that face, it's going to stick like that’? There's a truth to that in dermatology, which is why Botox has become so popular.”
“And that's what happens with anxiety — you're concentrating hard, or closing your eyes, or feeling anxious, and you'll get this furrowed brow. You'll make those 11 lines, and you'll make those horizontal lines.
“Eventually, if you do it enough, you'll get stuck like that.”
Elevated emotions during this period can also increase levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, which can reduce collagen and make you breakout.
“It can make acne worse by acting on the sebaceous glands to increase oil production. This can worsen acne, but it may also damage or reduce collagen production,” Dr. Shah said.
“So there are two things that happen in times of stress. You squint your face, so you'll get those chiseled lines, but you also lose the collagen and elastin support that allows your skin to bounce back after you squint your face. So it's kind of a dual effect.”
But what can be done about it? As any big fan knows, simply deciding to “calm down” doesn't usually solve the problem.
If injections aren't your jam, there are other products that can help combat the lasting effect of “fear” on your face, including retinoids, moisturizer, and sunscreen.
“Sun protection is very important to protect collagen and elastin,” Dr. Shah said.
He also recommends Neutrogena's Collagen Bank line, which includes a day moisturizer with SPF and a night moisturizer without.
Although we know that collagen loss contributes to skin aging, many topical collagen products on the market don't actually work because collagen molecules are naturally too large to be absorbed into the skin. Dr. Shah says Neutrogena has found a way around this.
“If something is larger than 500 daltons, it won't be able to get through the skin,” he said. “So they created this microscopic peptide that is able to migrate into the collagen layer to stimulate collagen and elastin production.”
With more collagen, your skin recovers faster, so the lines that appear on your face while you're screaming at the screen don't stay there.
And muscular men, whose moods depend on the outcome of the game, take note: The doc also stressed that this isn't just a problem for women.
“Both men and women will face this problem equally, and the treatments will be very similar,” he said.
