Bye Bye Puffy Panda Eyes

If eyes are the windows to the Soul, then make sure yours don’t have curtains hanging off them. I have drapes with flaps practically hanging off my peepers … a result of too much coffee, too much alcohol and way too little sleep. And that is why I spoke to our SimplyFab Naturopath friend, Jean Luc to get him to recommend a purer solution than just the Pharmacy.

SIMPLYFAB:

Do roller pens and under eye creams work on puffy panda eyes for a repentant night owl like me?

JEAN LUC:

Whilst they reduce the look of dark circles and puffiness under the eyes, the effects are temporary. The cold contact from the metal ball in the pens and the caffeine in creams temporarily constrict blood vessels and tighten the tissues under the eye. To look less sleep deprived, you might want to reduce the amount of coffee and caffeinated-sodas you consume daily in favour of a nutritious alternative. Eating less salty food and drinking at least 2.5 litres of plain water a day also helps greatly. The area around the eye is very delicate – try not to rub or stretch the area. When applying eye cream, ‘fingerprint’ the cream onto the area, rather than massage it in.

SIMPLYFAB:

Yeah, yeah … heard all that before! But the point is water is tasteless and not always palatable no matter how healthy or vitamin infused it is (grumble, grumble under breath .. whilst heading to pantry to make more coffee)

JEANLUC:

Drinking water or even soup is all about flushing out the system and if good old fashioned water does not do it for you, flavour the water with a few slices of lemon, orange or use a small bunch of mint. If you need a beverage with some home-made taste to it, try brewing a Sweet Corn Soup as it is a nutritious alternative.

RECIPE:

Get 4 fresh sweet corn cobs with all the tassels (cornsilk) intact, put them into your stock pot with ¾ cup pearl barley, sweetened with 6 water chestnuts roughly chopped up. Add in 2 litres of water and bring to boil. Once boiling, bring heat down and simmer the soup for about 60 to 90 minutes. You will start to smell the sweet corn cooking away. When done, remove from heat, and allow the soup to cool down before drinking. This soup is traditionally sweetened with rock sugar, but I find it already quite sweet from the sugars in the sweet corn and water chestnut. The key ingredient is the corn tassel or cornsilk. Drinking 3 to 5 cups of the boiled soup in addition to your daily water intake helps you empty your bladder more often and more effectively, removing accumulated metabolic wastes in your body that lead to puffiness and poor microcirculation around the eyes. The corn also contains certain proteins that protect your eyes from oxidative degeneration. You can have this soup once or twice a week.

SIMPLYFAB:

I am too busy to go boil soup .. is there an easier solution?

JEAN LUC:

Alternatives to soup: There are herb teabags on the market you can try – look out for those containing herb combinations like Eyebright, Cornflowers, Chinese Wolfberries or Blueberries. Make your own Herbal Brew: To make things easy for myself, I get a 300ml Thermos flask (glass or stainless steel interior) throw in 1 tablespoon each of dried longans and Chinese Wolfberries, pour in boiling water, and allow to steep overnight. Next day, pour out to drink, and top up again with hot water. I can get about 3 brews out of each batch before I wash out the whole kit. The Longan and Chinese Wolfberries work on brightening the eyes by soothing the over-active liver.

Make your own Camomile Eye Mask: If you need to look fab for an important function, try this trick with Chamomile Tea. Make yourself a pot of chamomile tea with 2 teabags, and then take out the teabags – keep them aside to use on your eyes (lay on eyelids). Sweeten the fresh chamomile tea with some honey and lie down to enjoy it, while applying the warm (don’t burn yourself with hot teabags) teabags to your eyes until they become cold. Then get some cotton pads, moisten with ice-cold water and apply as a cold compress. The effects are more immediate if you can repeat the cycle of applying warm and cold at least 3 times. To keep the chamomile teabags warm, I dip them into a cup of hot water again. Do not use any herbal infusion or teas as eye wash or eye drops unless they are specially prepared for those applications by professionals; you can seriously damage your eyes and you only have one pair.

Combat Puffy Eyes: Food-wise, try to have food rich in potassium to counteract the puffiness. You can get potassium in foods like celery, avocados, bananas and kiwifruits, all of which are good for your skin too. The final note on the reduction of dark circles and puffiness under the eyes, of course, is to get enough sleep. If you cannot catch up on your sleep, your liver gets over-active, your body doesn’t get enough repair work done, and it will be much harder to get rid of those signs around the eyes.

Jean Luc lives in Vancouver, Canada and has been a long time friend of Simply Fab. Meet him in one of our earlier posts: http://www.simplyfabulicious.com/a-tip-to-curb-sweet-cravings