Fight Stress, Fight Acne!

Once we’ve entered the vicious circle of stress, only a great inner power and our self consciousness would be able to save us. Pessimistic or not, this is the truth… Once we let stress govern our life, it will not be so easy to save ourselves and to become our own masters again.
Of course, you can’t eliminate stress from your life, because it is part of being human. But you can minimize its damage by leading a healthy lifestyle. A balanced diet and at least seven hours of sleep every night will help you build a stronger physical foundation.

Stress is our common enemy, as we all talk about it; we all blame stress of everything: of the way we behave, of the way we become more and more irritated by our own friends, husbands and wives and children… Stress is always there, waiting to grab our souls and minds!
But why let stress enter our lives just like that?…
If you’re well fed and well rested, you’re less likely to feel irritated by the events of your day. Try to get some exercise every day, even if it’s just a walk around the block at lunchtime.
It’s also important to take time out on every day to relax — read a book, take a bath, practice yoga, or do whatever makes you feel happy and calm.
It’s an important step towards overall good health, and therefore the health of your skin.
So, fight stress, fight acne!

The Stress Connection

As we have already showed, not surprisingly, stress has a starring role in the ongoing acne drama. “Ninety percent of my patients complain about what stress does to their skin. It has a huge impact, and it’s becoming a bigger problem every day,” says Katie Rodan, MD, a clinical professor of dermatology at Stanford University. Unfortunately, people complain more and more about stress’ effects, but they seem to ignore stress itself and its inner causes. Instead of doing something against these causes, people tend to go to the doctor’s for receiving prescription against all kind of diseases that stress triggers.

However, how can stress, that is the emotional anxiety caused by any number of factors in your life, show up on your face? The connection is purely chemical. When you become tense, your adrenal glands start working, flooding your bloodstream with the hormone cortisol.
Then cortisol triggers the sweat glands in your face to produce more oil. When your sebaceous glands go into high gear, there’s a higher probability that this excess oil will mix with dead skin cells and clog your pores, trapping bacteria inside.
The result? The result is no longer a mystery. It consists of more acne, primarily inflamed papules rather than blackheads or whiteheads.
But stress may go further…, beyond all expectations. After it triggered acne inflamed papules, stress can make people further pick on these papules, which will make acne even worse. The sufferers will then get even angrier and more irritated and will increase the already existing stress factors.
This way, people enter the vicious circle of stress and only a great inner power and their self consciousness will be able to save them.

Sun Therapy. Sun and Acne

As we have already said, while it is true that small amounts of sun exposure may initially improve acne, you should not be fooled; unfortunately, the benefit is temporary and thus sun baths become inefficient because of the sunlight’s long-term side effects. Sun and acne may be friends, you know!
Consistent sun baths will dry your skin, causing your sebaceous glands to produce more oil. Also, skin that has been exposed to the sun has to slough dead skin cells more frequently. And when you combine the extra oil and extra dead skin cells, you are in fact building the ideal environment for comedones, or blocked skin pores.

So if you work (or play) in the sun, it’s important to protect your skin with sunscreen.
Look for oil-free products that provide at least an SPF 15 protection level from UVA and UVB rays.

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