What does your skin say about you? Does your skin look healthy? Is your skin youthful, firm and elastic? Or are you aging too fast? Do you want to look and feel younger? What is the best way to have and maintain beautiful healthy skin?
Your skin, especially your face, tells a great deal about your health and diet, degree of hydration, your habitual thinking, levels of stress, and your sleeping patterns.
When face to face with people the condition of your skin does leave an impression in their visual memory. Women in particular are very aware of this. The cosmetic industry researchers, who focus on creating face creams and treatments, consistently tell us the key proven ingredients to help repair and renew your skin are Vitamin A, acids and antioxidants. But there is a lot more to beautiful skin than just putting stuff on top. If what you put inside, the materials with which to make new skin, is poor, then nothing you put on the outside will ever make up for that poor nutrition.
Your Skin Cells Have a Use By Date
The outer surface of your skin is actually not living tissue. Your skin consists of two layers, the epidermis made up of five sub-layers, and below that the dermis.
The base layer of your epidermis is where the new cells are germinated and progressively migrate through the sub-layers to the surface as they mature and end their life cycle forming the dry outer layer. Below the epidermis is the dermis composed of networks of fibres made from the proteins collagen and elastin, which provide strength and support for your skin.
Males generally have thicker skin with more collagen and elastin so have an advantage over females whose finer texture and thinner layers benefit from more care to maintain best condition.
The life cycle of skin cells changes with age. A baby can regenerate skin cells in as little as 14 days. By age 30 it can take up to 30 days for renewal, by age 50 up to 37 days, and longer still as the years go by. You continually make new cells in the deepest sub-layer of the epidermis from nutrients provided by your diet and delivered via your blood circulation.
New cells are full and moist and as they form and grow to maturity they progressively push the previous layers towards the surface. By the time your skin cells reach the surface they are dry and scale-y as their life cycle is complete, so the top layer of your skin consists of dead cells. The thicker the layer of dead cells the duller the appearance.
This surface layer is progressively rubbed off through daily bathing, interaction with your clothes and exposure to outer world elements.
Remove Dead Skin
The cosmetic industry provides various products to scrub off the dull surface layer of dead cells.
A simple and effective way to do this is by dry brushing all over your body before a shower to improve circulation and remove flakey outer dry skin cells making your skin receptive to oil or moisturizers after your shower. Both Vitamin A and Vitamin E oils are nourishing to your skin, applied topically as well as included in your diet.
Your face is constantly exposed to the elements and deserves additional attention. It too responds well to gentle exfoliation. I found by applying a good film of aloe vera gel and letting it absorb, the dead cells on the surface soaked up the moisture content of the gel and then could be easily and gently “rolled” off, exposing the fresh skin below without harsh scrubbing. Repeat the application of aloe vera gel again till no more softened dead cells rub off. Aloe vera as well as moisturizing your tissues, both living and no longer living, is also very healing for your active skin cells, excellent after exposure to drying winds or burning sun in the summer or heated rooms in the winter.
Elimination
Your skin is your largest elimination organ and works with your lungs, kidneys and bowel to dump waste efficiently so your internal environment stays clean and healthy. When you are sick your body odor changes as you eliminate more toxic elements through your skin and share the extra workload of your kidneys and bladder. Keeping the bowel clearing is essential as well. Waste products congesting in the skin can cause rashes or other reactions to the toxic elements. Keep drinking water and brushing the skin before showering. Avoid soap as it is very alkaline while your skin is naturally acidic to protect from outside invasions of bacteria. When skin is in distress neutralizing the acid mantel defenses can make matters worse.
Feed Your Skin
Water is your number one nutritional need. Water is for hydrating cells and is also your delivery system for nutrients and is essential to flush out waste created inside cells during normal cellular function. And water is the key ingredient in your lymphatic system that collects the waste products once outside the cells, to process through lymph nodes and deliver to your venous system and then to liver for detoxing and eliminating.
Protein is the main building block of all cells including your skin. Protein sources are nuts, seeds, meat, chicken, eggs, fish, dairy, beans, lentils, soy – so you need these to repair wear and tear, and replace worn out cells every night as you sleep.
Antioxidants found in juicy fruits provide moisture as well as specific protective nutrients. Eating colourful fruits and vegetables will ensure you keep up your antioxidant levels. Nature is generous and abundant in providing a great range of colourful antioxidant-rich fruit and vegetables for beautiful, well protected skin on the outside as well as serving all the tissues on the inside. Generally the brighter and more colourful the food the higher is the antioxidant content.
Fruit provides many options to indulge your skins needs. Include a variety of fruit like blueberries, blackberries, black grapes, cherries, goji berries, strawberries, pawpaw, oranges, red grapefruit. The yellow, orange, red foods provide caroteniods that are fat soluble that your liver converts to Vitamin A, essential for your skin. The dark colours, black, purple, deep green provide water-soluble antioxidants and do their job without needing liver processing first.
Vegetables too fill your skin’s antioxidant requirements. Eat lots of these. They are less likely to flood your system with too readily available sugars as an overload of fruit can do. High sugar levels cause havoc. Eat beetroot, broccoli, carrots, tomatoes, capsicum, peas, anything green, raw and cooked – all things bright and beautiful.
Vitamin A heals skin on the outside and on the inside. Your mucus producing internal skin includes you lungs, stomach, small and large intestines, and all benefit from Vitamin A. Helps acne too. Cod liver oil was the stand by in past generations for Vitamin A. Your liver converts carotenoids from red, orange, yellow fruit and vegetables to Vitamin A.
Vitamin B used topically has shown anti-cancer properties, improves the ability of the epidermis to retain moisture, reduces fine lines, and is anti-inflammatory. Get the benefits by eating chicken, tuna, potatoes, spinach asparagus, black beans, watermelon. B6 helps correct cracking, dry skin especially on the lips and tongue. B12, found almost exclusively in animal products, is important for nervous system and rapidly dividing skin cells. Leafy greens are a good source of Folate, also important to your rapidly dividing skin cells.
Vitamin C found in fruit and vegetables, especially eaten raw, is essential to build collagen networks for supporting skin tone and elasticity. You can’t build collagen without Vitamin C. Your face as well as your whole body needs it.
Vitamin D forms in the skin when exposed to UV rays from sunlight. It is essential for maintaining muscle mass, utilizing calcium for strong bones, supporting immune system, and for triggering T killer cells that destroy cancer in the body. Use common sense about when and how much time you spend in the sun.
Vitamin E protects from sun damage, promotes healing of your skin, reduces formation of scar tissue, and maintains elasticity. Can be applied topically to soften and sooth dry scale-y skin and reduce wrinkles. Include whole grains, seed and nuts, eggs, avocado, veges and leafy greens.
Minerals are contained within your proteins, fruit and vegetables as well. Minerals are electrically charged, either positive or negative, and are the kick starters of functions.
Selenium acts as an antioxidant mineral to prevent cell damage by free radicals, supports tissue elasticity and protects your skin from ultraviolet light damage so has an important role in preventing skin cancer. Eating three or four brazil nuts a day provides basic selenium needs. Also include eggs, brown rice, whole wheat bread.
Zinc is in every antibody you make and is important to keeping your skin clear and healthy. Acne is often a problem for teenagers and can indicate too little zinc for this transitional stage of life as zinc is important for regulating hormones. And even in later years zinc is important, especially for males and their reproductive system.
Vitamin, mineral, antioxidant and fibre levels vary within different foods so eating the same choice day in and day out can create imbalances and lead to deficiencies. Lots of variety gives you the best opportunity of balanced nutrition without thinking too much about the specifics.
Oils and essential fats are important to the flexibility and discrimination ability of the membrane of every cell, to allow in what supports and nourishes your cells and keep out what is toxic. Specific fats are essential to provide the base for your hormones, buffer your nerves and your brain tissue too.
Deficiencies of essential fatty acids and beneficial oils can make themselves known on skin surface as inflammation, redness, rosacea, acne, itching, psoriasis, eczema, and more. Omega 3 is effective for reducing inflammation of skin and also in joints and muscles. Flax seeds, chia seeds, deep sea fish are good sources.
Recovery
Your skin suffers along with your internal upheavals. If you have specific health issues see a professional who can advise you as your nutritional needs can be more specific when recovering from injury, illness or other trauma and emotional distress.
Summary
The condition of your skin tells a great deal about what is happening inside your body and brain. Taking care of your skin from the outside only cannot replace taking care of your skin from the inside.
If your skin is showing stress you may need a complete review of current food habits, and also check out lifestyle habits and stress patterns to once again have a beautiful skin. Book in for a Kinesiology balance.
Cheers
Anna McRobert
anna@annamcrobert.com.au