How to deal with adult acne
We hear many of our customers talk about their struggles with acne—well into adulthood. This common condition can be quite distressing on the journey to finding balance within, for your health and your skin.
Skin acne can be a result of internal or mental imbalances. Your skin is your biggest organ, so it needs to be nourished like all of your internal organs.
The skin has to deal with direct exposure to our environments each day from pollution, sun, toxic chemicals and nasty additives from our hygiene products and sunblock.
How your skin looks and feels directly reflects your inner world, so getting your inflammation under control and focusing on wellness is essential.
Hormones and Acne
The main hormones that can cause adult acne are the reproductive hormones like oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone and stress hormones such as cortisol.
Adult acne can affect both women and men. However, we often hear more about adult acne in women as it is commonly tied to menstrual cycle changes, menopause and pregnancy.
By restoring the foundations of your health, balancing your body, using the correct skin care, reducing inflammation and supporting the gut and nervous systems, the hormones tend to follow suit and shift back into balance, and the acne clears.
The Biofeedback System
The skin doesn’t work alone, but it belongs to the beautiful biofeedback system like all body parts. Like any skin condition, acne is the body simply communicating with you that something is out of balance.
Acne can affect your mood and self-esteem and give your inner critic a whole list of things to judge and be unkind to yourself about. So, let’s fast track your healing, embrace the journey, help you find your feminine flow, and support you to live with optimum health and have beautiful glowing skin as a natural result.
Top 7 tips to Clear Your Skin from Acne
1. Reduce Your Toxic Load
Many of my clients have ‘a-ha’ moments regarding this environmental wellness pillar. They didn’t realise that having non-organic household and hygiene products here and there each day adds up to a big issue. These products create a high toxic load and skin conditions such as acne.
This is why everything that goes on your skin must be packed with natural ingredients and that is why Ocean Muse Skin care range has it all covered. Active Ingredients blended with potent antioxidants is a powerful routine to give to your skin daily. Ocean Muse is a vegan skin care range created to combat the harshness our Australian climate can be on our skin.
Skin prone to acne tends to be sensitive. By choosing Ocean Muse Skin Care you avoid products containing fragrances, dyes, refined oils, and many other synthetic chemicals that can irritate your skin and make acne worse.
Exposing your skin to sunshine will boost your vitamin D levels, and swimming in the sea has a substantial balancing effect on your skin’s pH
When it comes to household cleaners, you must remember that your home has a microbiome. Of course, we need to have clean homes, but using vinegar and natural products instead of chemical ones is always the way to go to eliminate bacteria and viruses.
It would help if you also were discerning when it comes to dishwashing liquid and clothes washing products. Dry cleaning should be avoided and only used for special occasions.
2.. Boost Electrolytes
Many of my client’s drink 2L of water each day but are dehydrated because they are not absorbing the water at a cellular level.
I love to use infused waters to improve hydration by adding lemon, lime, ginger, cinnamon and fresh mint. Mix up a 2L jug of infused water each day and take this to a whole new level by creating a natural electrolyte by adding 1/2 teaspoon of unprocessed sea salt.
This will also flush out your kidneys, for, after all, your skin is like your third kidney and whatever the kidneys can’t filter out is dumped onto your skin.
Two litres minimum of good clean infused filtered water is ideal and increase that to 3L if you are a coffee/caffeine drinker.
3. Support Your Gut
One of the first places I start with any skin condition is the gut. Simply helping the body absorb nutrients from your diet makes a tremendous impact, allowing the body to heal itself.
To support your digestive system, chew each mouthful 20 times, eat more warm foods, boost your veggies to improve your prebiotic culture, and eat foods naturally high in probiotics such as sauerkraut organic kefir, kimchi, cloudy apple cider vinegar and aloe vera.
Boost your anti-virals and anti-bacterials, too, like pumpkin seeds, garlic, ginger, cayenne, lemon, grapefruit and cloves. Probiotic-rich foods also help line and heal your gut and create a healthy, sealed barrier that prevents inflammation that can trigger acne.
4. Reduce Stress
Living under high stress increases inflammation, reduces the body’s ability to heal and can cause skin issues. Since your skin is not essential to life compared to your heart or brain, the body will reduce blood flow to organs that are not vital for survival in a fight or flight situation.
Your adrenal glands also release more cortisol when stressed and sleep-deprived, affecting how much oil your skin produces. Increased oil production can cause cysts below your skin, leading to painful acne.
Stress reduces healing blood flow to your skin and shuts down your body’s unique ability to heal. I have found that starting your day with mindfulness, gratitude, visualisations, and affirmations is terrific for both mind and body.
Start your day in gratitude and calm your inner critic. Choose to start talking to yourself like you would your best friend, for often, our internal dialogue can be our most significant stressor.
When you feel a trigger change your state, take three deep breaths and, if possible, get up and move, choosing to no longer sit and give energy to negative thoughts.
When you choose gratitude and joy, your health will flow, giving your skin an irresistible glow and a chance for your body to heal all systems, including your integumentary system – your skin.
5. Embrace Beauty Sleep
Beauty sleep may be an old cliche, but there is some science behind it. Sleep allows you to detox from the day you have just had and supports a healthy flow of your essential pathways and organs.
During deep sleep, blood flow is increased to your skin-supporting healing, repair and collagen production, facilitating repair and reducing wrinkles, age spots and breakouts such as acne. Deep sleep supports growth hormone release, creating new cells that help heal damaged skin cells.
6. Sweat
Your skin loves to sweat, which helps your body remove toxins, bacteria and even heavy metals. Sweating is a great way to reduce inflammation but always make sure you wash your skin, especially before exercise, to unblock your pores. You don’t want any dirt or makeup to block your pores, especially if you are prone to acne. Make sure you clean your face with a cleanser that does not use fruit acids as they are harsh on your skin and will strip your natural oils away. Ocean Muse Islander Dream Cleanser is gentle on the skin, full of powerful antioxidants and other ingredients such as champagne seed extract, Bakuchiol (natural alternative to retinol) and Sun-Alg. A cleanser that will leave your skin feeling, smooth clean, fresh and replenished.
7. Support Your Liver
The liver and your hormones are directly related, which results in hormone-related acne. The liver does not make hormones itself but plays a significant role in hormonal imbalances as the liver breaks down or metabolises the hormones once they have done their work in the body. Supporting your detox pathways and liver function has an indirect but consequential effect on your skin.
Eating liver-supportive foods can therefore help clear up acne. Eat more cruciferous vegetables, like broccoli and cauliflower, leafy greens, beetroot and antioxidant-rich fruits, such as berries, pears and apples. The liver also loves garlic, onions and lots of wellness water. You can also take herbal supplements with milk thistle, nettle, artichoke, dandelion etc. to cleanse your liver.
Regular exercise is another way to support your liver, improve detoxification, balance your hormones, and it is excellent for your mood and mental health. Remember to choose a movement you love doing as a fun exercise rather than an act of obligation or punishment due to the food you ate, for this will put you back into emergency mode, driving up your stress hormones and negatively impacting your skin.
Skin Conclusions
As you can see, there are lots you can do to support healthy, glowing skin to give your body what it needs to heal your acne.
Even something as simple as using the right skin care products, cleaning up your diet, drinking good, filtered water and getting your beauty sleep will have a remarkable healing effect on your skin, so you look and feel amazing.
Be kind, get your head in the game and choose to love and talk to yourself as you would your best friend to keep your stress levels in check.
If you want to learn more about what is triggering your skin condition, you can book a 15-minute consultation with our Aestheticist via oceanmuse.com.au