No one likes feeling stressed. It can feel all consuming, taking over both your mind and body, but do you know how stress can impact skin? There are plenty of studies that show just how much stress (whether it’s chronic or acute) can impact the health of our skin, and exacerbate any underlying skin conditions too.

Firstly, stress is believed to impact our epidermal barrier, the important layer of the skin keeping the good stuff (i.e. moisture) in and the bad stuff (i.e. environmental aggressors like pollution) out. You need your barrier to be fighting fit to ensure your skin stays healthy. Any issues with it can lead to irritation and dehydration, as well as bouts of eczema or psoriasis.

There’s also a growing body of research interested in how acne flare-ups can be linked to stress. We’ve all experienced a bout of pimples or blemishes after a particularly stressful period at work, which could be down to peaking hormones triggered by stress.

So how do you deal with stressed out skin?

First, you should look at the root cause of the stress. Not everyone has a magic wand to help their problems go away, so if you can’t eliminate the cause, look at ways to remedy it’s impact – find new ways to relax whenever you can.

Then, it’s important to make sure your skincare routine is up to scratch. If your skin is in a reactive mode, then you need a regime that will tend to this particular Skin Mood™. And we can certainly help with that. Book a Holistic Skin Session with one of our Skin Mentors to unpack everything that’s affecting your skin right now, and to curate a game plan to get it back on track.