There’s nothing worse than being stressed about a big day, except stressing about a big day with a pimple on your face. Sadly, these two go together like two peas in a pod. Unfortunately, the relationship between stress and acne are very well- established. Stress doesn't always lead to acne, but it is very likely, especially for people with acne prone skin. A study done in 2003 found stress could indeed trigger an acne episode and the greater the stress, the more pronounced and long term the breakout (Heid, 2017).
An associate professor of dermatology at George Washington University accredits this to a stress related hormone called CRH which is the corticotropin-releasing hormone, as a culprit of this relationship. CRH released cortisol. CRH is known to bind to the receptors in the skin's sebaceous glands that drives up the skin's oil production which leads to pimples. Cortisol is known to sends these glands into overdrive. Blemishes are essentially a inappropriate inflammation and when CRH is activated it is creating an immune response that is causing the swelling and redness of the blemish (Heid, 2017).
When the skin is stress, it loses its natural ability of protecting itself and can lead to further complications such as inflammation and premature signs of aging. Cortisol also lowers the production of Hyaluronic acid which dehydrates the skin and triggers a production of excess sebum which is the perfect recipe for a bacterial breakout. This means you'll not only be experiencing stress acne but bacterial acne as well (Korakkottil, 2020).
The longer term and chromic stress, the slower the healing process will be due to the way that high levels of CRH weaken the immune system. With, methods of stress relief such as meditation, exercise, gratitude, etc. can decrease the number of breakouts you have.
In today’s busy world more adults are prone to acne due to the increased pressure to do more faster that leads to chromic stress.
The studies done in determining this relationship are all done ethically, these are not finding from doing trials rather determine by collecting data and studying the physiology of this process. This is beneficiary because these finding help navigate methods to reduce these stress breakouts from happening, Knowing the cause can aid in finding a solution.
Heid, M. (2017, November 8). Acne and stress: Can worrying really cause pimples? Time. Retrieved November 29, 2021, from https://time.com/5014072/stress-pimples-acne/.
Korakkottil, A. (2020, August 5). Does stress cause acne? Dermalogica. Retrieved November 29, 2021, from https://www.dermalogica.com/blogs/living-skin/does-stress-cause-acne.
Hi Kyra!
ReplyDeleteThis was a super interesting post to read. I found it interesting that adults are more prone to acne due to chronic stress. Growing up I always believed that acne was strictly due to hormones and diet, but after my older sister took physiology in nursing school she informed me that this is not the case.
I did a little more research on this topic and I found another article focusing on the connections between the brain and the skin and how stress can lead to skin aging and inflammation. The abstract of this article puts things into perspective for me and really allowed me to better understand this concept. It mentions, as did Heid's article, that "recent research has confirmed that the skin is both an immediate stress perceiver as well as a target for stress" (Chen et al. 2014). As the largest organ in the body, the skin is a major line of defense and plays an important barrier for the immune system, "maintaining homeostasis between the external environment and internal body functions" (Chen et al. 2014).
I think that after learning the physiology behind stress in this class a lot of things that I have noticed about my own physiology make sense, and this is certainly something that makes sense in that regard. It's interesting how large of a role stress plays in our lives, whether that be beneficial or deleterious to our health. Although stress has many benefits in terms of survival instincts, there is a reason the saying "stress is the number one killer" exists.
Thanks for sharing this article! I'm going to send it to my family my sisters are super into skin care and they would find this article an interesting read.
Here is the article:
DeleteChen, Y., & Lyga, J. (2014). Brain-skin connection: Stress, inflammation and skin aging. Inflammation & Allergy-Drug Targets, 13(3), 177–190. https://doi.org/10.2174/1871528113666140522104422
Acne seems to be the buzzword on all social media platforms - especially when it comes to the new coined term Maskne. I see that your study was not conducted in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, I am wondering with the stress of the pandemic and the mask mandates if acne has even gotten worse? There was a study that had twenty subjects wear six hours a day for two weeks and observed the results (Kim et. al, 2020). The skin of the majority of subjects exhibited redness, more pore volume and acne lesions and an increase in sebum production (Kim et. al, 2020). This study was just in two weeks - I have been wearing a mask almost nonstop during the week since last year! Yikes!
ReplyDeleteKim, J., Yoo, S., Kwon, O. S., Jeong, E. T., Lim, J. M., & Park, S. G. (2021). Influence of quarantine mask use on skin characteristics: One of the changes in our life caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Skin Research and Technology, 27(4), 599. https://doi-org.dml.regis.edu/10.1111/srt.12992