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.

Stress and Acne. Coping with Acne

Stress and acne! But what is in fact the relation between stress and acne?
In a previous post we have called stress one of acne’s main causes. Well, you should not understand these words in a wrong way.
Stress itself is an abstract notion. Stress is like air; “you don’t see air, but you know that it exists” – as Dee Dee told Dexter in one of their continual fights. (For those who are no cartoon fans, please consider Dee Dee and Dexter just two fictional characters.)

However, you should understand that our busy lifestyle doesn’t in fact cause acne; it is the way we live that does affect our whole body, as well as our largest organ: the skin. Stress doesn’t specifically cause acne or any other disorder, but it makes our body and its organs and its skin… weaker and weaker and unable to protect themselves against all kind of bacterial or viral attacks.
The place you work, the work you do, the people you interact with, your daily duties, the hours you keep, the ways you play - all of these can take a toll on the epidermis, especially in those who are prone to acne. So, stress doesn’t cause acne, it is just that it plays the role of the Trojan horse. It carries within all kind of nasty possibilities. Once it is stress that controls you, you become more prone to acne, as well as to any other diseases and illnesses.
Next we will try to make you aware of some of the everyday acne triggers that you might not be aware of. We will try as well to offer you some solutions, some tricks about what you should do to avoid them.

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