Published: September 30, 2024
Although it’s normal to feel stressed every now and again, anything more than this could have wider implications. Irritability, poor sleep, depression, and even gut problems are common side effects when stress starts to get the better of you.
However, did you know that your stress levels affect your skin too? The more stressed out you are, the more stressed your skin will be, which can then trigger a number of other problems.
Wondering if you’re stressing your skin without realizing it? Join Avinichi as we talk through what stressed-out skin looks like, as well as what you can do to restore a sense of balance and calm happiness to your complexion.
How Exactly Does Stress Affect the Skin?
Whether caused by work deadlines, relationship problems, money troubles, or anything else, any form of stress causes your body to release a hormone called cortisol. The purpose of this hormone is to help you deal with the stressful situation that you’ve encountered. In the short run, this is very useful. However, chronic stress means that cortisol is regularly flowing through your body, which can lead to various negative consequences for your skin:
Acne Breakouts
With increased cortisol comes an increase in sebum production – the oil that your skin produces. With the skin’s sebaceous glands suddenly working overtime, it doesn’t take long for the pores to end up clogged. Combined with the inflammation that’s also triggered by stress, acne breakouts become commonplace.
Cleansing your skin twice a day with a foaming cleanser, like the Avinichi Noni Clarifying Lather Purifier, will help to remove the sheer amount of extra oil that coats your skin’s surface during times of stress. However, your long-term goal should be to deal with those stressors so that sebum production can slow back down.
Redness and Inflammation
Cortisol and inflammation go hand-in-hand. As a result, stress often causes the skin to look red and inflamed. Rashes may be experienced too, often due to stress causing an imbalance in the gut, which then affects the skin.
If you suffer from an inflammatory skin condition, such as eczema or psoriasis, studies have found that it will likely flare up during times of stress.
One way to calm your complexion until you’re able to gain some control over your stress levels is to use skincare ingredients that are known for soothing the feeling of inflammation. Aloe vera and chamomile are two popular examples. Both can be found in the Avinichi Noni Pore Purifying Toner, which instantly leaves the skin feeling balanced and refreshed.
Dehydration and Dryness
You’re probably aware of how important your skin’s protective barrier is. Not only does it keep irritants from entering the deeper layers of your skin but it also blocks moisture from evaporating away.
Unfortunately, when stress is at play, skin barrier function declines. This, in turn, affects moisture retention, leaving the skin dehydrated. Dryness is common too, with both together causing the skin to look dull, rough, and flaky. You may also notice that your skin often feels itchy for no apparent reason.
One way to give your skin some temporary relief from this is to keep it covered with a hydrating moisturizer, like the Avinichi Noni Morning Glow. With a blend of shea butter, vitamins, and botanical extracts, it will leave dry areas feeling velvety smooth.
Accelerated Wrinkle Formation
Protein fibers hold your skin up from within, giving it its structure, volume, and smoothness. If these protein fibers start to deteriorate, wrinkles and sagging are soon to follow.
Unfortunately, stress causes exactly that. The excess cortisol in the body damages the protein fibers in the skin. This accelerates the onset of wrinkles.
Products like the Avinichi Noni Youth Restoring Solution will help you to temporarily mask the appearance of wrinkles. However, you won’t be able to put a stop to their development unless you take control of your stress levels.
Temporary Facial Flushing
You’re likely aware of how stress can affect your breathing habits. Breathing speeds up – you’ll take more breaths per minute. Your breaths will also be more shallow.
This can, in turn, cause temporary flushing of the face. However, once your breathing is back under control, your skin should calm down.
Calming Stressed Skin
What should you be doing if you’ve been stressing your skin? Here are a few tips:
Target the Source of Your Stress
While there are plenty of steps that you can take to counter feelings of stress, it’s worth identifying your biggest stressors. Is it a job that you hate or a toxic relationship that you feel trapped in? If you’re able to eliminate as many of your stressors as possible, then not only will your skin start to look much better but you’ll also be so much happier!
Put Together a Stress-Busting Skincare Routine
If there’s no getting away from the main source of your stress, and stress is likely going to be a big part of your foreseeable future, put together a skincare routine that you can turn to during times of stress. Now that you know exactly what stress does to your skin, you can choose products that target those changes.
The Mulberr-E Moisture Infusion Cream from the Avinichi Phyto Thermal Collection would be a great product to add to your routine during times of stress. While salicylic acid targets the excess oil produced by your skin, the vitamins and hydrating extracts will keep your skin feeling quenched and calm.
Give Meditation a Try
Meditation is a commonly recommended solution for stress, and there’s a reason for this…it works! Not only will meditation help to calm your mind but studies have found that it can help with stress-related skin problems too.
Never meditated before? There are plenty of guides online to help you to get started. Try to keep your initial sessions short before building up to longer meditation times. You only need to meditate for a couple of minutes at a time to start with as you’ll need to first train your brain to focus in a certain way.
Make Time For Yourself
It’s all too easy for life to get so hectic that you no longer seem to have any time for yourself. However, this really isn’t going to help your stress levels…
If you want to keep stress low, you need to make some time for yourself. Spend this doing various activities that you enjoy and that make you happy. Whether this means going for a hike, baking a cake, indulging in an at-home spa session with a couple of face masks, or anything else, this me-time will do wonders for your mental health.
Prioritize Sleep
Sleep can be a contentious subject during times of extreme stress. Why? Because stress can cause sleep deprivation. However, that sleep deprivation then increases stress levels while also causing a number of other issues for your skin. Once you get into this stress/poor sleep cycle, it’s difficult to escape from it.
While that may be the case, it’s worth making an effort to do just that. Try to prioritize sleep, encouraging your body to drift off at a suitable time each night. Having a consistent wake time that you stick to throughout the week, even on weekends, can help.
Ideally, aim for 7-9 hours of quality sleep each night. Not only will this help to bring your stress levels down but your skin will look all the better for it too. Include an overnight face mask into your evening skincare routine, such as the Avinichi Liquid Lift Overnight Melting Mask, and your skin will sport an even brighter glow come morning.
Sweat It Out
Looking for a way to quickly calm both your complexion and your mind? Exercise could be the answer.
Getting your heart rate going, even if just with a quick workout, will work to lower the cortisol levels in your body. This, in turn, will reduce the visible signs of stressed skin. As an added bonus, exercising also boosts blood circulation, which brings even more benefits to the skin. It enables your skin cells to access a larger amount of nutrients and oxygen, immediately bestowing your complexion with a radiant glow.
What sort of exercise should you be doing? This is completely up to you. Pick a physical activity that you enjoy so that the time you spend exercising can also double up as some much-needed me-time!
Eat a Balanced Diet
Did you know that a poor diet can exacerbate stress? Certain foods, such as refined carbohydrates and sugar, cause a spike in blood sugar levels. This then increases the amount of cortisol the body releases – the hormone that’s primarily responsible for all of the trouble your skin deals with whenever you’re stressed. Eating these foods at any time isn’t going to be good for your body but snack on them during times of stress and you’ll quickly make everything feel so much worse.
On the other hand, cut those foods out of your diet and consume more whole foods and you’ll be able to keep your cortisol levels much better regulated. Certain foods can even have a calming effect on the mind. Complex carbohydrates, such as whole grains and oatmeal, can increase serotonin levels in the brain while herbal teas are known for soothing feelings of anxiety.
Probiotic foods can be beneficial too. They help to bring balance to the gut, which will keep your stress levels in check. Magnesium-rich foods, like spinach, should be turned to as well. Magnesium helps to encourage sleep, which, as we’ve discussed, can be key to minimizing stress.
Summary
While occasional stressful moments aren’t too much of a big deal, consistent stress can have a number of detrimental consequences for your skin, not to mention your mental health. Hopefully, by this point, you now understand how to recognize signs of stress in your skin. If you’ve spotted any in your own complexion, follow our tips above and bring your stress levels down so that you can once again enjoy a calm, bright, and balanced complexion.
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