Hormonal acne: are you missing these 3 steps in your healing?
Hormonal acne is on the rise with over 50% of adult women experiencing it, that’s 1 in 2! And I FEEL for them, hormones can be an absolute bitch.
That is, until you learn to optimise your terrain.
Today I am going to guide you through the first 3 steps you absolutely must take in order to heal your acne holistically. This information is also relevant if you are suffering from any other hormonal symptom such as PMS, heavy periods, fertility challenges, menstrual migraines, short cycles, peri menopause…the list goes on!
First let me give you a super quick GSCE biology revision:
A hormone is a messenger, sent from a gland to a receptor cell in a tissue or organ. We produce over 50 every day and they are responsible for a multitude of different jobs including igniting hunger, suppressing appetite, waking us up, sending us to sleep, making babies…..pretty important and varied stuff!
But hormones will only work as well as the environment they are put to work in.
Think of your hormones as actors on a stage. For them to perform their best you need to make sure they know their lines, they’ve rehearsed well, had a good nights sleep, been fed….send your actors out on stage on the back of a sleepless night and you can safely assume the performance won’t be great.
So how can you set the perfect scene for your hormones?
1. Balance your blood sugar levels with good nutrition and lifestyle behaviours
Learning to balance your blood sugar levels with nutrition and lifestyle is one of the first things I teach all of my clients. A dip in blood sugar levels calls upon your adrenals (stress hormones) for cortisol to be released. Cortisol is catabolic which means is breaks down tissue, this time stored glycogen releasing glucose into the blood stream.
This is a fantastic survival mechanism that our body has, but is not required at 10am when you’ve skipped breakfast!
The rise in glucose then calls on the pancreas to release insulin in order for glucose to be taken into cells. You can think of insulin like a little key turning the lock on each of our cells for glucose (energy) to be let in.
Cortisol and insulin are two hormones that can cause havoc with our sex hormones (and skin) if we don’t keep them in check which is why balancing your blood sugar levels with the right nutrition and lifestyle behaviours is key. We dive deep into balancing blood sugar levels in Unlock your acne, the online course included in my 1:2:1 coaching programme, so if this ringing true for you let’s chat and discuss how I can help.
p.s This first step is ESPECIALLY important during peri menopause where we can expect a certain amount of insulin resistance to develop due to changes in hormones. This is where our cells become less sensitive to insulin so more gets released.
2. Get to know your inner clock
You might have heard of something called a circadian rhythm. Circadian rhythm’s are physical, mental and behavioural changes that follow a 24-hour cycle responding primarily to light and dark. Essentially we have an internal clock that works best when we are living in tune with our external environment. Easier said than done in this day and age unfortunately and I firmly believe this cultural disruption in our circadian rhythm is feeding into many of the hormonal challenges women are facing nowadays.
It’s believed that all of our organs have their own circadian rhythm, and a bit like an orchestra; if one gets out of tune, everything can start to sound a little ‘off’.
But here is the real crunch, our menstrual cycle works off of the back of our circadian rhythm. So if you are living totally out of balance with that (think late nights, lots of coffee, constant exposure to blue screens) your menstrual cycle is going to get disturbed and you guessed it…..hello hormonal acne.
So in order to harmonise your hormonal cycle and heal hormonal acne, you need to first address and optimise your circadian rhythm. Again we cover all of this in Unlock your acne.
3. Address any underlying inflammation
Inflammation is not the back drop you want for your stage! If you think of inflammation like the smoke of a fire, it’s going to potentially get everywhere. Fires also consume a lot of energy, burning up supplies of antioxidants meaning less is available for your skin and hormones. Locating where the fire is for each of my clients and what damage has been done is the work we do in True Skin Transformation, my 1:2:1 coaching programme.
To start addressing underlying inflammation I recommend starting on an anti-inflammatory diet (the most studied is the mediterranean diet), increasing your antioxidants (think colourful fruit and veg) and omega 3 fats found in oily fish (think SMASH: Salmon, Mackerel, Anchovies and Herring). I also recommend a therapeutic grade omega 3 fish oil such as Life & Soul by Bare Biology. You can purchase here using my code CVM010 for 10% off.
I hope this has given you some hints and clues as to what to do next if you are suffering with hormonal acne. Don’t forget this advice can also be applied to other hormonal symptom such as PMS, heavy periods, period cramps, fertility challenges and peri menopause.
