Does psychological stress really influence a skin aging process? All of us had probably seen tons of Internet motivators summoning to fight stress, live a healthy lifestyle and other good things that are much easier to talk about than to bring to real life. Let’s try to find out, does the stress really affect your skin appearance, and what could be done.
First of all, we should distinguish two types of stress and aging.
It might be a surprise for you after all those Internet motivators, but there is also a “positive” type of stress. Let’s have a closer look at both stress types:
- Eustress – an acute and mild psychological or physical stimulation like exercise, caloric restriction, and brief UV irradiation. It mobilizes human body and possesses anti-aging effects.
- Distress – a persistent stress that is not resolved through coping or adaptation. It exacerbates aging through cumulative processes of inflammation, oxidative stress and DNA damage.
There are also two types of skin aging:
- Photoaging – primarily a function of sun exposure and pigmentation. The best way to confront it is to avoid excessive tanning and to use a sunscreen with SPF ≥ 30
- Chronological aging, which is primarily a function of time. Recent studies show that although the evidence of direct connection of psychological stress to skin aging is incomplete, drawing a parallel between age-related disease alleyways may potentially bear new avenues for therapy with both cosmetic and clinical medical applications.
Both of these types of aging are cumulative processes.
The good news is that you can adapt to psychological stress through one of the variants that seem to be most attractive and affordable to you:
- Physical exercises (yoga or somatics)
- Soothing breathing exercises
- Changing your attitude towards events in your life
- The help of professional psychologist
- Enhancement of your time-management skills
- Improvement of your sleep and rest regimen
Of course, all the proposed options for dealing with stress are time and effort consuming, but as a result you will greatly improve your health and appearance of your skin.
