Have you ever feel uncontrollable over your emotions? Are you facing family problems or have you ever fought with your love? And all these situations are cause of stress. You might have felt that there’s nothing you can do about stress. The bills won’t stop coming, there will never be more hours in the day and your work and family responsibilities will always be demanding.

But do you know stress can affect the skin? Do you know it can worsen the problems related to skin? Actually, stress can affect your whole body, including your skin, hair, and nails.

How Stress Affects Skin

Stress causes a chemical response in your body that makes skin more sensitive and reactive. It can also make it harder for skin problems to heal.

Have you ever noticed that when you are stressed, you break out more? This is because stress causes your body to produce cortisol and other hormones, which tells your sebaceous glands to produce more oil. Oily skin is more prone to acne and other skin problems.

Stress can also:

Worsen skin problems. For example, stress can worsen psoriasis, rosacea, and eczema. Stress can also cause hives and other types of skin rashes and trigger a flare-up of fever blisters.

stress affects skin
stress affects skin

If you have a skin problem that doesn’t heal or keeps coming back, rethink how you handle stress.

Here are the 9 Ways to Reduce the Effects of Stress on Your Skin

Although it’s impossible to avoid stress completely, there are ways to handle it better. Try these approaches

  1. Don’t neglect your skin:
neglecting skin
neglecting skin

Take care of your skin, even if you’re tired or stressed. Follow regular skin care routine and regular spare some time for your skin. Keep it clean and moisturized.

  1. Get regular exercise:
get regular exercise
get regular exercise

It’s good for your skin and the rest of your body. By increasing blood flow, exercise helps nourish skin cells and keep them vital.

  1. Spare some time with yourself:
spare some time with yourself
spare some time with yourself

Take time for yourself to do something you enjoy, even if you only have ten minutes. Take a bath or read an article. Spare some time for your hobbies. Visit any hill station at regular interval of months or years.

  1. Celebrate the small moments:
celebrate the small moments
celebrate the small moments

Celebrate small achievements, special days and sometimes failure too. Yes! Failure too. Because celebrations give us energy.

  1. Take a break:

 

take a break
take a break

No one can thrive when we’re sitting at the computer for hours on end, all day long. A five-ten minute break every hour can do wonders for you.  Take some fresh air after a regular interval of time. Even though you are in cycle of busy hours.

  1. Practice stress management techniques:

 

practice stress management techniques
practice stress management techniques

Practice techniques like such as breathing exercises, yoga, meditation, or visual imagery. It will help to keep your mind fresh and make you happy.

  1. Do you waste your time in useless chatting and talk overnight? :
get enough sleep
get enough sleep

Get enough sleep. Seven to eight hours each night is ideal. Sleep helps to heal the skin problems and somewhat it helps to stay away from the problems of skin.

  1. Say no:
say no
say no

Have you ever felt hesitation in saying “no”? But it’s totally OK to set limits and boundaries to lower your stress. You can not make everyone happy. In the loop of making everyone happy, you can forget yourself in that loop. So learn to say NO sometimes.

  1. Avoid loneliness:
avoid loneliness
avoid loneliness

Talk to someone. Seek support from a friend or a professional therapist. It is OK to be dependent emotionally on someone else.