Is Anxiety Making Your Acne Worse?
You've got a big presentation at work and you've been pulling all-nighters to get everything done. This is your big chance! But when you wake up the morning of the presentation you have a giant zit on your forehead that make you feel less than confident.
Ugh! We've all been there and it's not fun. Have you ever wondered why stress affects your skin? Let’s explore the mind-skin connection and what we can do to improve our mental health and get clearer skin.
How the Skin Senses Stress
The skin is the largest organ of the body. One of its primary roles is to make you aware of your surroundings and to act as a barrier to protect you from bacteria or viruses that might try to invade.
Your skin has many nerves to sense physical stressors such as pain, heat, cold, and pressure and send signals to the brain to respond to this information.
The brain’s job is to make sense of the information about the environment and inform the rest of the body whether it’s safe to relax or to stay on high alert. When neurons in the brain sense physical, emotional, or mental stress they send signals to an area of the brain called the hypothalamus.
The hypothalamus translates stress into hormonal signals to be released and circulated throughout the body. Cortisol is released from the adrenal glands which prepares the body for survival. The brain also sends stress hormones directly to the gut and skin to put them in "high alert" mode.
The skin is key in protecting us from physical threats. A physical wound would require an immediate immune response in the skin to protect from infection and stop bleeding. Unfortunately the skin cannot differentiate stress from a physical threat or stress from an emotional event. In both cases the skin is on high alert.
Chronic stress or anxiety leaves the body in constant "high alert" state. This high alert state eventually leads to inflammation and excess oil production in the skin which can contribute to acne development.
Cortisol, Blood Sugar, and Acne
Yet another way that stress can lead to acne is through cortisol's influence on blood sugar. Cortisol makes it more difficult for blood sugar to enter cells so that there is an abundant supply of glucose in the bloodstream. In a “fight or flight” situation you need to have plenty of circulating blood sugar available to your muscles for energy as a survival mechanism.
Insulin is the counter balancing hormone that wants to bring the blood sugar down. Unfortunately in the cortisol-insulin battle, cortisol always wins because it's the hormone of short term survival over long-term health.
Chronic stress leads to chronically elevated levels of blood sugar and insulin. Insulin is an anabolic hormone which means it makes cells grow. High insulin levels signal skin cells to rapidly divide as well as signal an increase in skin oil production. All this excess oil and dead skin ends up clogging your pores and contributing to acne.
If that wasn't bad enough, high insulin levels are also a major factor in hormonal imbalances which can also make acne worse by increasing oil production.
The Gut-Skin Connection
Studies have shown that chronic stress changes the population of the normal bacteria that resides in the large intestine. Gut bacteria have an important role to play in making the neurotransmitters needed for a healthy mood and brain function.
Disruptions to gut bacteria (dysbiosis) have been linked to skin conditions such as acne, rosacea, and psoriasis as well as increasing anxiety/depression.
What Can You Do?
Anxiety and acne are both complex and multifaceted symptoms. The conventional approaches are usually to prescribe various medications to manage the symptoms. Antidepressants, antibiotics, and birth control pills are the most common choices.
Instead of masking symptoms, I advocate for a holistic approach that encourages my patients to address the root causes of anxiety and acne. Here are my top recommendations for improving your mental health and reducing the inflammatory burden on your body:
- Practice essentialism - This means you carefully decide on your priorities and goals, then “weed your life” of commitments that don’t meet your priorities. Say “no” to many good things, so that you can say “yes” to a few extraordinary things.
- Plan ahead - Plan ahead for your week/month. Plan groceries and meals, write your goals and tasks down on Sunday for the week, avoid procrastination, leave early for events so you aren’t rushing.
- Walk outside - Go for walks outside whenever possible, notice little things about nature like the leaves, the wind, and flowers. This helps you ground to the present.
- Pray - If you practice a Faith, spend time praying, opening your hands to God for peace in your spirit, healing, and the faith to trust Him in uncertainty.
- Candle light - Spend one night a week after 8pm by candlelight. This helps set your circadian rhythm for a good night sleep.
- Practice Earthing/Grounding - Regularly walk barefoot outdoors to help neutralize free radicals to the earth’s negative ions.
- Cold Shower - End your regular shower with a 1 minute cold shower which promotes the “rest and digest” side of your nervous system.
- Meditate - Find a practice of meditation that works for you.
- Sing or hum regularly.
- Seek a skilled therapist to help assist you in discovering and releasing childhood traumas.
Everyday Choices Add Up to Improved Health
Your health is the sum of your daily choices. In the same way that getting in shape doesn't happen after just a week of working out, improving mental health doesn't happen in 1 day or 1 week. We have to make a practice of choosing to improve mental health consistently to see the benefits.
If you found this article helpful and would like to learn more, the 6-week The Clear Skin Code is my comprehensive guide to understanding the root causes of acne and discovering your road map to clear skin.
P.S. As always, if you have any questions - please feel free to email me at [email protected] and I'll personally get back to you!
Written by Kristin Cunningham, MSN, NP-C
Founder of BeMeta Health
