How Hormones Affect Your Skin: Acne Management and Unstable Emotion

Introduction

Life Reality: hormonal shift. From puberty to menopause, and pregnancy, menstrual cycles, stress, or lifestyle, one would assume that part of life is always "in a state of flux." And one area that this would be thought to present itself most is on our skin. But if ever you sit back and wonder why you break out at the worst possible time or your skin is brighter for one week and dull for another week, it's probably hormones. Now let's take a little dip into how hormones affect your skin, what may be causing those breakouts, and some tips on maintaining balance for a healthier complexion.

Hormones and the Skin: Understanding the Connection

All types of functions within the body can be controlled by hormonal chemical messengers. Such functions include the health of the skin. The skin is relatively sensitive to hormonal changes and more so those with sex hormones like estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. Such hormones are especially highly reactive with sebaceous glands, which work to produce the oil that keeps our skin moist.

The best part is, though, when hormone levels are in balance, the skin is relatively healthy, well-hydrated, and possesses no major breakouts. Any tiny shift could trigger some form of skin condition; from acne, dryness, or oiliness, to redness and inflammation. Discover more about the main hormones that could affect your skin:

Estrogen       Known around the world as the "female hormone," estrogen is important for healthy, youthful-looking skin. Estrogen causes stimulation of collagen, elasticity, and moisture in the skin. A level of estrogen that has decreased, such as during menopause, can cause skin that wrinkles very easily due to being too dry and thin.

Progestin:          The other sex hormone for women, levels are inversely related to the menstrual cycle when combined with estrogen, most playfully related to the menstrual cycle. This hormone will cause the person's skin to be more oily because it encourages the stimulation of the oil glands. Breakouts tend to happen when the progesterone level reaches its peak, mostly within the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle, due to oil causing pores to close off.

Testosterone: It is slightly found in females and is highly found in males. It is very common among ladies who have a lot of testosterone; once their skins become oily, it will bring oil onto the skins because of too much production of sebum resulting from the high levels of testosterone. When testosterone levels are high, it increases the secretion of sebum that contains oil within the skin and primarily leads to acne at the chin area and jaw.

Cortisol: Some refer to it as the "stress hormone." Its levels increase with stress. With this increase, it could result in the rise of inflammation and sebum in the skin, which can be associated in some flares of eczema or psoriasis.

Insulin: While not a sex hormone, insulin supposedly controls the sugar in your blood; elevated levels are extremely common with ingestion of sugar or refined carbohydrates and results in increased production of sebum and inflammation and causes acne.

Hormonal Changes Throughout Life

We are not the same in our lifetime and changes in the hormones we encounter at different stages play an important role. So, let us see what changes come and how that changes our skin: Puberty: Puberty is that time of hormonal changes, and to most, it's when acne starts hitting their skin. It's the androgens, primarily testosterone, which causes sebaceous glands to expand and produce more sebum. Added to the shedding of dead skin cells, pores can get blocked, causing pimples, blackheads, and cystic acne. These are areas where teens commonly break out with acne because these are areas of high density for the sebaceous glands: face, back, and chest.

Menstrual Cycle: Most women note that their skin seems to follow cycles, much like the monthly cycle. The cycle consists of a peak and a trough in estrogen and progesterone. In the first half of the cycle, estrogen is at its highest-usually when the skin is also in its healthiest appearance and brightest. The luteal phase is the second half, where progesterone will be the dominant hormone and the skin will feel greasy and, in some cases, breakout. Most premenstrual acne occurs when estrogen and progesterone plummet drastically at the end of the cycle.

This is when hormones such as estrogen and progesterone skyrocket. These changes and alterations in the body are different with every woman, and hence her skin reacts differently. Some even spoke of the pregnancy glow; it might be due to increased blood flow and oils, but others develop melasma, or dark patches on the skin, in the first trimester. As such, there must be variations in the hormone levels. Thus, skin sensitivity is increased due to such variations in hormone levels to react more to skincare products.

Perimenopause and Menopause: With age, the estrogen content significantly decreases in the course when the woman reaches the stage of menopause. Skin gradually loses its elasticity and collagen, hence becomes loose and shows wrinkles and fine lines. Meanwhile, it also becomes dry and may become more sensitive due to decreased oil production. Some even get menopausal acne due to the hormonal imbalance between the estrogen and the testosterone.

Stress and Age: Aside from that, stress is also one factor that can highly affect hormones. Thus, the chronic stress causes high levels of cortisol output that flare up the level of inflammation as well as oil production causing the breakout. More than that, the excess levels of cortisol can cause early damage on the collagen of the skin, hence contributing to age in addition to the skin sagging.

Common Hormonal Skin Conditions

All these hormonal changes lead to a number of skin disorders and among the most common one is-acne. Other disorders are also caused due to hormonal changes:

Hormonal Acne: In this regard, unlike the common or normal acne, which might have other secondary causes such as bacteria, or blocked pores, etc, hormonal acne is referred to as a direct consequence of the fluctuation of hormone levels in the body. It is usually found at the bottom of the face either on the chin, jaw line, or along the neck line. It's cystic. The acne is deep inside the tissue, throb and hurts, and harder to treat. Such breakout is more likely to flare up at any stage of menstrual cycle and at any pregnancy and menopause.

Melasma: Known as the "mask of pregnancy," melasma is a skin disorder characterized by dark patches mainly found on the face. It has been attributed to hormonal imbalances, especially in pregnancy or birth-control pills, and UV light exposure. Melasma is much more common in women and not an easy disease to be treated over the counter.

Other inflammatory skin disorders that flare very frequently due to imbalance hormones, mostly in quantities more than corresponding to cortisol include rosacea and atopic dermatitis.

The frequent flare-ups of these conditions are blamed mainly to be stress, pregnancy, or menopause-related.

Hormonal Oscillation Control in the Skin

Although hormonal changes are very natural in a life cycle, this doesn't mean you have no control over how these hormonal changes do to your skin. Here are a few tips on how to keep your skin healthy while undergoing these physiological changes happening in your life:

Balanced Diet: There is simply such overwhelming evidence pointing towards the fact that the food an individual consumes dictates his or her hormone. Eat fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins on a well-balanced diet and avoid added sugars and carbs that result in an insulin spike, which causes inflammation within your body. Most importantly, a diet rich in omega-3 fatty acids found in salmon and flaxseed helps significantly reduce inflammation and is very good for your skin.

Hydration flushes all sorts of toxins out in the body; it ensures your hormones are within control, so your skin doesn't become dull and dehydrated.

Proper hydration prevents dryness and dullness. Prevents breakouts also.

Basic Skin Care Routine: Your skin care routine has to be responsive in whatever change that the hormone is causing in your skin. In this case, if you are more oily as well as more prone to breakouts, products containing salicylic acid or benzoyl peroxide will do the job enough. And if you're on the drier or even sensitive side, hydrating ingredients go a long way-even in exfoliants-and lookout for hyaluronic acid, ceramides, or other fighters against dryness. The whole exfoliating business seems to work pretty well, except when it is over-exfoliated and irritates the skin.

Manage tension: Meditate, exercise, or deep breathing to balance the production of cortisol and help reduce inflammation in your skin. Relieving tension can be very helpful to your health in general and will contribute to healthy skin.

For your case that is worse in terms of hormonal skin conditions, you must see a dermatologist even the endocrinologist, because there are prepared experts in this field and they will conduct treatments like topical retinoids, oral contraceptives, or hormonal treatments to achieve a balanced level of hormones so that you eliminate your skin problems.

Conclusion

The change in the hormones is the core part of how one develops in life, and this affects the condition of the skin to become worse, and the skin needs to learn how its hormonal changes work together so you could, in fact, control these breakouts, dryness, oiliness, and other sorts of skin disorders. Thus, comes to know the skin care routine going on by keeping all changes happening within the body in respect of hormonal changes at bay and holding healthy shining complexions through any phase of life.

This makes one more conscious of the signals that the skin gives and therefore makes more intelligent decisions, which can then fall in sync with a natural body rhythm to result in healthier skin and better well-being.