Speak of stress and its psychological and social repercussions come to mind. Fact is, stress doesn’t only take a toll on how you feel, it can affect your skin as well. Unfortunately, we live in the real world, and stress happens to almost everyone. We all have work to do, deadlines to meet and bills to pay so we really need to start learning how to manage the stress. If we don’t, here’s what stress can do to make our lives worse.
1. REDNESS AND ECZEMA
Heard that stress can affect digestion? The brain and gut are constantly in communication. When the body is stressed, the brain sends signals to trigger a “fight and flight” response, releasing stress hormones to prepare the body for the threat. This fight and flight response can result in an imbalance of gut bacteria – too much bad bacteria outweighing the good ones. This imbalance has been implicated in various problems outside the gut, such as the skin.
Calm your skin with medical-grade probiotics to balance out the good versus bad bacteria in your gut. For redness, tone it down with VBeam, a pulsed dye laser which produces bursts of light that selectively destroys small blood vessels that cause skin redness.
2. ACNE
Cells that produce sebum have receptors for stress hormones. When there is an increase in stress hormones, our skin produces more oil, clogging up pores and leading to acne cysts. Gut microflora imbalance can also show up as acne on skin.
Control breakouts with Forever Clear BBL, a 3 step treatment with broadband light with anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory and anti-redness effects. Apart from medical-grade probiotics, topical probiotic creams are also thought to be helpful, such as Blue Orchid, an oil-free, lightweight moisturizer containing probiotics for troubled skin.
3. FINE LINES AND WRINKLES
Chronic stress can reduce skin elasticity and make you age a whole lot faster than you know. Feeling emotionally stressed often results in certain facial expressions such as furrowing your brows or pursing your lips, accelerating the formation of permanent wrinkles.
Blur those lines with anti-wrinkle Botox microinjections. These can be used to relax specific offending muscles. You should be able to frown a little, as the idea is just to prevent the skin creases from becoming static without wiping out expression.
4. DULL COMPLEXION
During the fight or flight response, our body directs more bloodflow to vital organs such as the heart, brain, lungs and kidneys to withstand the stress. This means less circulation occurs at the face, resulting in a dull, lackluster appearance. Chronic stress resulting in reduced skin elasticity means more fine lines, which is less efficient at reflecting light.
Start by helping your skin renew itself faster, such as including retinol in your skincare. Vitamin C helps to fight free radicals and will brighten up your skin tone.
5. DARK UNDEREYE CIRCLES
A lack of sleep can end up in a puffy mess around the eyelids. This can create a shadow beneath the eyebags and make you look tired.
Get at least 8 hours of sleep each night. If the dark undereye circles do not show signs of going away, quick fixes such as Quattro Toning Undereye or Revitalift Undereye will help tone down the discolouration.