To solve a problem, we have to take a step back and find where the source is coming from. If you have naturally gorgeous skin because of your genes, good for you! However, for many of us that are more sensitive and reactive with life’s external and internal factors, how YOU maintain your skin through your lifestyle is what will keep your skin at bay.
Here are four possible reasons why you could be breaking out:
1. You’re stressed out.
This is the root of all evil, not just with skin. Stress causes our hormones to freak out. According to “Glow” by Nadia Neumann, a book that helped me tremendously in this journey, androgens and estrogens (sex hormones) and cortisol (stress hormone) have the most influence on our skin.
We first experience hormonal breakouts during our teens but it doesn’t stop there, at least for most of us. According to experts, we go through two stages of “puberty”; one during our teen years, and after we hit age 25. After 25, our body’s cell regeneration process slows down. Basically, it all goes downhill from there and blemishes take a longer time to heal. That’s why we have to take preventative measures to slow down aging.
Unluckily for some, with aging comes adult acne. Stress triggers our body’s fight or flight response and as an effect, we produce more oils. This, then, causes inflammation, and inflammation leads to ACNE.
Being more conscious about your body will make you proactive about your lifestyle.
2. You’re sleep deprived (at least you don’t get quality sleep).
Consider sleep as our skin’s “under construction” period. The time of slumber is when our skin recovers the most. So when we deprive ourselves from quality sleep, we are also depriving our skin’s natural ability to heal and repair itself. Another interesting fact that I’ve read is that sleep deprivation has more to do with the quality rather than the quantity of sleep. This explains why some people feel energized even if they only had 4-5 hours of sleep as compared to someone who had 10 hours yet they still feel groggy and tired.
Thus, lack of quality sleep actually promotes stress internally.
It’s all interconnected. No amount of high-end skincare products or diet can help your body fully rejuvenate at night. If your sleep sucks, sorry to break it to you but your skin will continually suffer. If not now, it will in the long run (I learned this the hard way).
3. Your body’s not digesting your food properly.
If you think you’ve been doing fine with the above triggers (not feeling stressed and you’re not sleep deprived) then you might want to look at your diet. Like I said, most breakouts signify that there is something off internally.
There’s also a study that acne is correlated with gut issues. Simply put,
If we’re not properly digesting our food, our bodies can’t make use of the nutrients it provides.
80% of our immune system resides in our gut and when there are imbalances in the gut, the inflammation manifests mostly in our skin. Notice how it’s all interconnected? The skin’s our body’s first line of defense and acne can be a signal to heal an issue from within. So do a self check and be more conscious with what you’re feeling whenever you eat something. What you think are food allergies could actually be food intolerance, meaning it’s what causes a leaky gut. A leaky gut is what causes undigested food to enter the bloodstream and that causes inflammation throughout our body.
You might also want to refer to Face Mapping, an Ayurvedic and Chinese belief that certain areas in our face can signal where imbalance and inflammation is going on in our body. It can also be a guide especially for those with recurring acne on the same area of the face.
4. You’re using the wrong skincare products for your skin or you’re using too much products for your skin.
Some acne/skin irritations are caused by using products that aren’t suitable for your skin type. We have the tendency to try everything and anything we can just to get rid of pimples but most of the time, it does more harm than good and worse, it’s just a waste of money. I’ve mentioned this in my previous article 5 tips for Skincare Starters but it’s really important to know your skin type. What works for oily skin doesn’t necessarily work for people with dry skin. I found this helpful graph to help you discover what your skin type is:
Source: Reissue
When in doubt, consult a specialist (like me!)
Together with changing my diet, I had to change my entire line of skincare and went back to the basics:
Cleanse. Tone. Acne Spot Treatment. Moisturize.
I switched to an all natural skincare line – Eminence Organics’ Acne Advanced 3-Step Treatment Kit. The bumps from my acne were gone in less than 3 months. From there, I focused on lightening the dark spots already and I will make a seperate post about how my dark spots faded.
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All these reasons can cause acne but that doesn’t necessarily mean you are experiencing it all at the same time. This is just a general overview and I purposely started from within to what you put on your face to emphasize the importance of familiarizing your body signals.
Once you’ve Identified your trigger/s, It’s time to change or improve your habits.