When it comes to caring for yourself, your eyelids might not be the first body parts that spring to mind. Most of our lives, our eyelids go unnoticed. But this doesn’t mean they’re not active. Your eyelids blink thousands of times per day, using dozens of tiny muscles and ligaments to shutter your eye with specialized skin and tissue less than a millimeter thick. When you really think about how delicate your eyelids are, and how much work they do anyway, it’s easy to be amazed.

For these same reasons, eyelids take a beating. In fact, eyelids are worked so hard during your life that they are one of the fastest aging parts of your body. When people get older, it starts to show on and around the eyelids. Whether we’re talking crow’s feet or bags under the eyes, these signs of getting older are intimately tied to the eyelids. If you want to retain your young for as long as possible, and minimize the signs of aging when you do become middle aged or older, your eyelids will be one of the most important areas to focus upon. Here are some ways to do just that.

Drink/Don’t Drink

Your eyelids are mostly skin. For skin health everywhere on your body, drinking lots of water is important. Hydration is incredible for the skin. It is more effective at preserving skin health than all the creams and skin emulsions that money could buy. You should also avoid drinking alcohol beyond careful moderation. Alcohol is hard on the body, particularly your skin. Ethanol alcohol (the ingredient that gets you drunk) is nearly the same thing as camp fuel. Your skin wouldn’t do well if you drank camp fuel, would it? Why would you expect it to perform better when you’re drinking alcohol.

Consider Surgery for Good Reasons

Of all of the cosmetic surgeries you could get performed on your body, eyelid surgery will give you the most bang for your buck. If you have saggy skin above your eyes as you get older, upper eyelid surgery can get rid of the fat and excess skin that causes it, giving you a naturally younger looking appearance. The same goes for bags underneath the eyes. These can make even faces with great skin look old. Lower eyelid surgery can have that smoothed out in one simple outpatient procedure. You can’t eliminate the effects of time completely. Luckily, eyelid surgery is one of the best cosmetic surgeries there is.

Live a Healthy Lifestyle

Eat good food. Exercise. Don’t do drugs. You know the drill. All of these behaviors will either help your eyelids or hurt them. Oh, and don’t go out in the sun without sunscreen. Your delicate little eyelids will be damaged by the sun more and faster than almost anywhere else on your body.

We hope you have good luck preserving the health of your eyelids. You only get two eyelids. Better to get the best possible health and appearance out of them, right?