Your skin is your biggest organ, so it needs to be nourished just like all of your internal organs. The skin has to deal with direct exposure to our environments each day from pollution, sun, toxic chemicals and nasty additives from our hygiene products.
How your skin looks and feels directly reflects your inner world, so getting your inflammation under control to balance your wellness is essential.
Sort Your Inflammation
When your internal system is too acidic, and your inflammation markers are raised, it is harder for the body to heal. I have treated all sorts of skin conditions successfully over the years by treating clients holistically from the inside out.
Of course, dermatologists are excellent at what they do, but as a naturopath, I work in the lane of my expertise and balance the internal environment. I had chronic eczema as a child, and only after my first Bachelors in Science and Nutrition did my skin clear up. What happened? I changed my diet and started supporting my digestive system with Chinese and Ayurvedic herbs.
As a naturopath and nutritionist for the past 23 years, I have treated many cases of acne, eczema, psoriasis, rosacea and many other fungal skin inflammatory disorders. Like with any client, I always look at the fuel from the diet and the function of all 11 systems, particularly the digestive, lymphatic and endocrine (hormonal) systems when it comes to skin. Making sure your detox pathways are also open, and flowing is also imperative.
Inflammation is part of the body’s innate immune response and is beneficial for healing if acute from injury to repair damaged tissue and protect ourselves against pathogens. Chronic inflammation, however, is harmful and linked to all major skin problems and diseases.
A diet high in inflammatory foods, leaky gut, parasites/candida, poor blood sugar regulation, low hydration, poor sleep, hormonal imbalances, toxin build-up, high stress, and a lack of mindfulness practices will affect your inflammation. Therefore, the quality of your skin.
So, where do you start? As a home improvement project, usually, it is not enough to give a fresh coat of paint but rather is better to look at the foundations to make sure it is structurally sound—just like your health.
Whether you have acne, ageing skin, or a chronic skin condition, some key factors need to be addressed so you can look and feel your best.
My Top 10 Tips For Youthful + Glowing Skin
1. Support Your Digestive System
One of the first places I start with any skin condition is the gut. Simply helping the body absorb nutrients from your diet makes it amazing what the body can do to heal itself.
To support your digestive system, chew each mouthful 20 times, eat more warm foods, boost your veggies to improve your prebiotic culture, eat foods naturally high in probiotics like sauerkraut, organic kefir, kimchi and boost your anti-virals & anti-bacterials like pumpkin seeds, garlic, ginger, cayenne, lemon, grapefruit & cloves.
2. Balance Your Hormones
Many hormonal imbalances are the drivers for blemished skin. Before I use herbs to balance hormones, like in our Female Hormonal Balance capsules, I balance a clients diet, gut and blood sugar levels.
The best diet to balance hormones is a Low GI diet with good clean protein like wild fish, organic veggies and good fats like avocado, olives and coconut, avocado, hemp and extra virgin olive oil. If you have irregular periods, period pain, infertility issues, PCOS or you are menopausal. You can add our Female hormonal balance capsules as directed, but I always start with the above first.
3. Do A Parasite Cleanse
We all have a degree of parasites and fungus, and they are only an issue when they overgrow and get out of balance. I always see this as the primary driver of skin issues. This is because the body becomes too damp and inflamed when your good bacteria is too low and your harmful bacteria is too high. Using the Lunar Cycle to do a parasite cleanse is the most effective way to have long-lasting results!
4. Hydrate
Many are simply dehydrated and try to drink enough, but they might not be absorbing the water once again. I love to use infused waters to improve your hydration at a cellular level, marrying in lemon, lime, ginger, cinnamon & fresh mint leaves. This will also flush out your kidneys, for, after all, your skin is like your third kidney, for whatever the kidneys can’t filter out is dumped into your skin.
Two litres minimum of good clean filtered water is ideal, and increase that to 3 litres if you are a coffee/caffeine drinker. I also recommend using our wellness water recipe to help with hydration.
I’m also really fussy about the water I drink, so I choose Therasage H20. Not only does it remove all the chemicals like fluoride and chlorine but it also has nanotechnology to reduce the size of water molecules to get the best hydration at a cellular level.
5. Open Your Detox Pathways
So many of my clients are eating clean and trying their best, but their skin doesn’t improve, for their detox pathways are blocked. To open your detox pathways, you need to support your liver, kidneys, gallbladder, spleen and lymphatic system.
Doing the above is a great start, and to further support this process, cardiovascular exercise to vasodilate your arteries is terrific. The increased blood flow supports an abundance of nutrients to be delivered to the cell and toxins removed. This also helps to reduce plaque build-up in your arteries too.
Trampolining is also fantastic for your lymphatic system, and even a mini-rebounded each day for 10 minutes will be a great support. Skin brushing is excellent for improving lymph flow and constantly moving from your feet towards your heart!
6. Let Your Skin Sweat
Your skin loves to sweat, for it helps your body remove toxins, bacteria and even heavy metals. Sweating is a great way to reduce inflammation but always make sure you wash your skin, especially before exercise, for your pores will one up, and you don’t want any dirt or makeup to block your pores, especially if you are prone to acne.
You can use a regular sauna or get your sweat on with your exercise of choice, but my favourite way is with the Thersage FIR sauna. Not only does this technology allow the sweat to pour out of you to get the full detox release, the Red Light Frequencies in their sauna has “Tri-Lite” Therasage exclusive Light Emitting Diode (LED) that succinctly generates the healing light frequencies in the red light spectrum—600nm, and near-infrared spectrum 840nm, and 980nm from each diode—bringing the additional blend of Red & NIR frequencies to our Full Spectrum.
Why is this important for you to get the most potent skin-healing combination that I have ever come across! Don’t forget that when you use a sauna, a cold shower is best, and choose an organic body wash so that you remove all toxins, so none are reabsorbed once you cool down.
7. Manage Stress
Living in high stress increases inflammation, reduces the body’s ability to heal. Since your skin is not essential to life compared to your heart or brain, the body will reduce blood flow to organs that are not vital for survival. Add the fight or flight story where the body will vast-constrict just in case you face real danger and get cut to prevent you from bleeding to death.
Stress reduces healing blood flow to your skin and shuts down your body’s amazing ability to heal. I have found over the years that starting your day with mindfulness, gratitude, visualisations & affirmations is terrific for both mind and body. When you live in peace, your health will flow, giving your skin an irresistible glow.
8. Get Your Beauty Sleep
Beauty sleep may be an old cliche, but there is some science behind it, for sleep allows you to detox from the day you have just had and supports a healthy flow of your essential pathways and organs.
During deep sleep, blood flow is increased to your skin-supporting healing, repair and collagen production, facilitating repair and reducing wrinkles and age spots. Also, deep sleep supports growth hormone release, which creates new cells that help heal any damaged skin cells.
9. Feed Your Face
Ageing, age spots and slow wound healing are due to a lack of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants when your body has the tools it needs to deal with free radicals, the mitochondria in the cell can flourish, which slows down ageing.
You see, as we age, we also experience a decline in mitochondrial function, integrity and functionality decrease due to the accumulation of mutations and oxidative damage, which impacts our DNA and whether or not any of your genetic weaknesses turn on or stay turned off.
The game aims to keep your mind and body balanced, so you play to your DNA strengths. Eating a diet with more living plants is vital over a junk or high animal protein base, for this bombards your body with all it needs to stay well.
I’m not a vegan, and I eat fish regularly and occasionally other wild/organic animals, but I live mainly pesca-vegan. I do all of the above and supplement whole food plant-based supplements!
10. Reduce Your Toxic Load
Many of my clients have a-ha moments regarding this wellness pillar, for they didn’t realise by doing lots of these little things how they ad up to a big issue and a high toxic load. This is why it’s critical that everything that goes on your skin is natural & why I love using coconut and avocado oils and fresh also vera gel as part of my daily routines.
When purchasing vegan, organic skincare, it is imperative to choose natural vegan makeup, for many of my clients have a huge toxic load from the high street makeup brands.
When it comes to household cleaners, you must remember your home has a microbiome too. Of course, we need to have clean homes, but using vinegar and natural over chemical is always the way to go, so bacteria & viruses are eliminated. Still, you’re not living in a toxic environment. the same for dishwashing liquid and clothes washing too. Oh, and dry cleaning – please avoid this and only use it for special occasions.
Skin Conclusions
As you can see, there are lots you can do to support healthy, glowing skin, avoid blocking your detox pathways and support your systems.
Even something as simple as cleaning up your diet, drinking good filtered water and getting your beauty sleep will have a remarkable healing effect on your skin, so you look and feel amazing.
If you want to learn more about your overall Wellness and get a one page summary of steps to take to improve your long term wellbeing, complete my FREE Wellness Quiz today!
Simone
Thank you for this information I will try to follow some of those tips especially improving circulation and infused drinks to improve hydration.