Stress affects every aspect of your life and health. This includes social and personal relationships, work, romantic life, concentration, and even the ability to feel happy. This also means that it can have severe effects on your body as well as your face.
If you are stressed regularly, you might hardly notice the signs in your day-to-day life altogether, even though they are there. To identify those signs, to have to be aware of how you work through your whole day and also if you have suddenly started to notice any changes.
If you have been stressed continually for over two weeks, you should also get it checked by a psychologist or start going to therapy to deal with stress — prolonged periods of stress signals toward anxiety disorders, depression, or any other potential mental disorder.
One cannot expect to deal with these issues on their own as they need professional assistance. However, these are five things that you can do except for getting professional help to feel better and deal with stress effects on the skin:
Contents
Breakouts
The hormones released when stressed cause the skin’s oil glands to produce excessive oil. This oil causes many skin problems like clogging of pores, causing acne, and many other issues. Acne can also be aggravated when in combination with stress, one lacks sleep, unhealthy eating habits, excessive alcohol consumption, disorders like PCOD, or even just menstruation.
Under-eye bags
Under-eyes bags refer to the puffiness under your eyes if you’ve not been sleeping properly due to stress or other reasons. This is more prominent in older people as the hormones and muscles that keep the under-eye skin elastic don’t work anymore. But young people also may experience the same if they are not sleeping correctly or on their regular sleeping schedule. Sleeping and waking up on time are essential to avoid under-eye bags.
Dry skin
Stressed-out faces are prone to looking dry and irritated. When one is stressed, their skin does not produce enough corneum, which keeps the skin hydrated and protected from germs. This makes the skin dry and itchy, but you can deal with extra moisturization and care.
Rashes
Stress weakens your immune system, and because of that, an imbalance of bacteria happens in your body. This makes your skin excessively prone to infections, even with the most minor of irritation. It can even cause eczema and other skin conditions.
Aging
Can stress age you faster? The answer is yes. Stress can cause and show signs of aging on your face even more. It can weaken the hormones and oils that keep your skin elastic for long. If you’re stressed, you might also start to look wrinkly over time apart from just tired and lethargic.
How to Deal with Skin Issues due to Stress
Apart from what stress does to your face, prolonged stress can be a problem plaguing many. It can be caused by excessive work, loss of a loved one, a difficult break-up, or even just be triggered because of a reason you can’t seem to point out yet. Here are some ways you can learn to cope with stress and anxiety and manage it a little bit better:
Maintain a healthy work-life balance
Too much work and no time for yourself and the things you love to do can cause stress and burnout. Hustle culture pushes people to do always more than they are capable of, but this often neglects the fact that there’s no point in having a work-life and feeling terrible all the time.
Get your body moving
Sometimes, getting out of bed and doing the essential things in the day is difficult. But exercising, if made a part of one’s routine, can cause wonders for one’s mood. Doing cardio and other exercises boosts the release of happy hormones and endorphins.
Avoid unhealthy coping mechanisms
Many who suffer from an unhealthy mental state tend to turn towards coping mechanisms that do them no right, like excessive alcohol consumption, overworking, etc.
Talk to a professional
This is the most crucial step to make yourself feel better. There are many ways you can try therapy online and offline. Some websites and companies let you try much mental health professional before you feel comfortable one. You can also try out cognitive behavioral therapy for anxiety to unpack more emotions. BetterHelp.com has a resourceful article all about cognitive behavioral therapy and how it may help you.
Bottom line
Now you know what stress does to your face and how you deal with it. You can use these tips if you are overwhelmed with your problematic skin and want a change. You might also feel like in while it’s understandable because that is part of the process.
Why someone wants to indulge in such behavior is always the right way to accept your issues and try to work on them step by step even though it takes longer. You will slip up many times, but once you’ve identified issues, giving time to your beauty regime and talking to a professional about them might be the best option.
