I know I’ve hammered on this point several times, and I’m almost sick of hearing myself say it, but I still think that any doctor that tells you that stress and anxiety are not related to acne breakouts cannot definitively say that logic applies to everyone, because it certainly would not apply to me if past experience says anything. 

Take this past week for example.  I had a stressful day at work, and about one day after this stress occurred, I sure enough got a few  new pimples by my temples, after weeks of pristine skin and not a single new zit cropping up.  The funny thing is, it doesn’t matter what I eat, what I wash my face with, if I’m using one of the best natural acne treatments I use, if the stress is acute enough, I will almost surely have some new pimples to show for it. 

Sure, moderate stress is ok, because of my yoga and my general nature in coping with moderate stress, I feel that at this age of 32, I’m able to deal with stress pretty well, to keep my nervous system in check, which in turn keeps my hormones in check (you see, all of that is related), and I’m able to avoid breakouts.  But when the stress is acute, and happens in a relatively short period of time, I can’t really handle it well, especially if it’s something that I take home with me after it happens, and that’s when my skin goes awry.

On a separate note, yoga I’ve found is one of the best tools in my life that I’ve found to deal with pressures and stresses and manage my anxiety, because it trains you how to breathe correctly under stress, which calms the nervous system and also allows more oxygen into the lungs, which oxygenates the blood stream and allows your body to more aptly cope with stressors. 

There’s no doubt that acne is many times worse for us during our teen years.  Our teenage years are the formative years where our hormones are still trying to figure out how to behave.  Girls are just starting their periods, and men are, well, becoming men.  Imbalances of testosterone and estrogen prevail during these teen years, and many times it exhibits its ugly head in our skin by making us break out fiercely during our teens, and therefore teen acne is given probably the most attention. 

That is, until today when we have an increasing amount of adults that seem to have never ending problems with acne.  Enter a new phase of adult acne solutions and products that have to take in consideration the adult skin type along with defeating oils and imbalances in the skin effectively.  Talk about tricky.

Teens are faced not only with ragingly imbalanced hormones during this tough age, but the rising pressures of school and peer pressure.  I was just reading an article about how teen’s biggest stress is school these days. It made me think back to my teen years, which seemed wrought with not only stress over school, but acne.  It was a painful time for someone like me, who is shy, but who also wanted to do well in school and have friends. 

Not to mention the stresses of “being cool” and feeling like you’re a big nerd if you didn’t have any friends or sit at the “cool table” at lunch.  Talk about a bunch of bs, sure we all know that now and wish we could have realized that in high school and junior high, but it was the most important thing to us back then, to fit in.  Add a bad case of acne and bad skin to the picture, and teen acne is almost unbearable for many teens, boys and girls, to bear. 

It is also said that academic performance is a huge sressor on kids nowadays in high school, especially if they hope to get scholarships or acknowledgement that will follow them outside of high school, on their journey into real adulthood and a good job, and hopefully something that they enjoy doing and can make a great living at.  Now that’s stressful!