Mindful Beauty: The Connection Between Skin and Mental Health

Have you ever noticed that your complexion seems to suffer when your mental game isn’t at its best?

This is down to the brain-skin connection, a field that researchers have recently been exploring in depth. They’ve found that the link between our mind and our skin is strong – not only can the appearance of your skin impact your mental health, but feelings of stress and anxiety can, in turn, influence the health of your skin. This can often leave people trapped in a vicious cycle, where both their skin and their mind take it in turn to aggravate each other.

This is why it’s important to practice mindful beauty. Taking a holistic approach to your skin will ensure that you encompass your mental health in your self-care routine too, allowing both to shine. Read on as Lionesse dives deeper into the concept of mindful beauty. We’ll talk you through the various skin concerns that can arise due to stress and other mental health issues, before explaining how you can turn to mindful beauty to put things right.

Stress and Acne

Stress sends the skin into turmoil, leading to a number of different issues, one of which is acne.

How are the two connected?

Well, whenever you’re feeling stressed, your body releases a hormone called cortisol. This hormone helps the body to deal with stressful situations and, in small amounts, it’s very useful. However, when you experience chronic, meaning long-term, stress, all of that extra cortisol starts to interfere with your skin. One way in which it does this is by stimulating sebum production.

If you’re prone to acne, then you’ll be familiar with how excess sebum on your skin quickly leads to clogged pores and breakouts. This is something that stress exacerbates. In fact, the sebum produced during times of stress tends to be thicker and greasier than usual, making it even more likely to block your pores. Numerous studies have found a solid link between stress levels and acne severity, confirming that the two are very much intertwined.

It doesn’t help that acne breakouts then contribute to more stress. Dealing with pimples, along with the marks and scars that they leave behind, can impact a person’s self-esteem and confidence. The distress that all of these breakouts cause sends stress levels soaring even more. Many people also unconsciously start picking at their pimples, increasing their odds of dealing with scarring and infections. All of this extra stress once again increases oil production, causing a cycle that’s hard to break.

Dealing With Acne Mindfully

So, where does mindful beauty come in when tackling acne?

The first step is to take control of your breakouts. To do this, you’ll need a good cleanser, just like the Lionesse White Pearl Facial Cleanser. Use this formula twice a day and you’ll be able to remove a large portion of the extra sebum that your skin is sporting. This will minimize your chances of experiencing clogged pores since there won’t be as much sebum on your skin’s surface anymore to settle into those pores.

With that said, a cleanser on its own won’t keep your complexion acne-free. It needs to be combined with a good exfoliant, which should be used two or three times a week. Don’t be tempted by overly potent formulas. These will dehydrate your skin in the long run, which can actually make acne worse. Instead, you need a gentle yet thorough formula, such as the Lionesse White Pearl Facial Peeling. Not only will this peel effectively exfoliate your skin but its pearl powder content will leave your skin looking luminescent!

Once you have a good cleansing and exfoliating regimen in place, it’s time to take charge of your stress. Simply having a plan of action when it comes to tackling breakouts will help, but there are a few other changes that you can make to your lifestyle to assist with this too. 

One way to go about this is to work on improving your diet. Cut back on foods containing high amounts of sugar, as this can worsen breakouts. Many find that dairy products do the same. Instead, try to eat vitamin-loaded superfoods as much as possible. Not only will this benefit your acne-prone skin, but it’ll give your mental health a boost too!

Stress and Eczema, Rosacea, and Other Inflammatory Skin Conditions

Unfortunately, when you’re feeling stressed and high amounts of cortisol are shooting through your body, increased sebum production isn’t the only issue that you’ll have to deal with. Another problem you’ll encounter is increased inflammation.

Why? Because all of that cortisol interferes with the delicate balance in the body’s inflammatory and anti-inflammatory processes. As soon as the body recognizes the extra cortisol, an inflammatory response is created. 

Inflammation spells bad news, not only for your skin but also for your general health. A number of diseases, including heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and depression, have all been linked to increased cortisol levels and stress.

When it comes to your skin, any inflammatory skin conditions that you suffer from will flare up during times of stress. Be it eczema, psoriasis, rosacea, or acne, these conditions will all severely worsen each time you feel stressed out.

Flare-ups of these conditions can heavily impact a person’s appearance. From redness and sensitivities to itching and discomfort, all of the symptoms caused by these conditions will likely affect your mental health too. This then triggers more stress and anxiety, which only serves to make the inflammation even worse.

Dealing With Inflammation Mindfully

Mindful beauty plays a vital role when it comes to successfully dealing with inflammation. With that said, the first step to take is to look for skincare products that can help to quickly lower the feeling of inflammation in your skin. This will soothe the visibility of the symptoms that you’re dealing with, which will then make it easier to get your mental state back into balance.

The Lionesse White Pearl Skin Toner would be a good place to start. It’s packed with complexion-calming ingredients, including aloe vera leaf juice, chamomile extract, and cucumber fruit extract. At the same time, it also contains a relatively short ingredient list. This means that it’s less likely to exacerbate your stress-induced sensitivities in the way that other products might. 

Our White Pearl Day Moisturizer is another great product for soothing the complexion. It’s infused with shea butter. This ingredient is brimming with fatty acids that will leave your skin feeling calm, soft, and supple.

In terms of mindful beauty, one way to deal with inflammation is to spend some time in nature. Research shows that spending just 20-30 minutes in natural surroundings will result in a big drop in cortisol levels and, therefore, the inflammation that’s associated with it. This is largely down to how exposure to natural environments has been proven to decrease anxiety while helping with other mental health problems. This once again confirms just how powerful the link between your mind and your skin is. 

Frowning and Wrinkles

Ever looked in the mirror during times of heightened stress? If so, you’ve probably noticed that you tend to make certain facial expressions when you’re feeling anxious and agitated. From frowning to furrowing your brow to pursing your lips, all of these expressions cause the skin to crease up.

Sure, your skin will likely bounce back to its smooth state once your face relaxes. However, the more you make those facial expressions, the less this is going to happen. Instead, those temporary creases will start to etch their way into your skin, turning into permanent expression lines and wrinkles.

This is why people who deal with large amounts of stress often find themselves developing wrinkles on the forehead, around the mouth, and around the eyes much earlier in life than they should. Having to tackle the appearance of premature aging in addition to everything that’s already stressing you out will, as you can imagine, only make all of that stress worse.

Dealing With Wrinkles Mindfully

The first way to incorporate mindful beauty into your fight against the visibility of wrinkles is to stop all of that frowning! This is, without a doubt, easier said than done. However, try to be more aware of facial tension. As soon as you feel this, force yourself to relax your face. A quick massage between your brows can help with this while also calming your mind. Forcing yourself to smile as widely as possible can help too by countering the lines that appear when you frown. Plus, this is also a good way to trick your brain into thinking that you’re happy, which encourages it to release feel-good hormones.

At the same time, you should also be incorporating certain ingredients and products into your skincare routine. Look for ingredients designed to smooth and tighten the look of your skin, such as hyaluronic acid, vitamin C, and vitamin A. You’ll find all three in the Lionesse Black Onyx Serum. It also contains DMAE, an ingredient that has been proven to have lifting and firming effects on the complexion.

Another way to give both your skin and your mental health a big boost is with a fast-acting, complexion-smoothing product, such as the White Pearl Wrinkle Reducing Syringe. This advanced blend was created to instantly soften the visibility of wrinkles, making them temporarily unnoticeable. Apply this product to your frown lines and they won’t look quite so obvious. This can go a long way in restoring your confidence, which will then help you to cut back on how much you frown!

Of course, natural skin aging will catch up with you eventually, so be prepared for this. Develop a quality skincare routine that is filled with ingredients that can help to prevent and reduce the look of aging. This way, you’ll be able to slow down how quickly your complexion ages in the future too, giving you one less thing to worry about!

Practice Mindful Beauty With Lionesse

There’s no getting away from the fact that mental health and skin health are so strongly interconnected. If one of these starts to suffer for whatever reason, you can be sure that the other will also soon begin to struggle. Being aware of this link and practicing mindful beauty as much as possible will help you gain some control over both your complexion and your mental state, enabling you to ensure that both remain in balance as much as possible.

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