What’s better than trying to fight stress? Avoid it!
If “adaptogens” are a soviet era dream, what can you do about stress? Here we can discuss skin, because life stress is beyond my expertise.
When you see a plant in the desert, you may wonder how it can survive these conditions. Their strategy is to avoid the conditions. Some evolved to do photosynthesis with closed stomata (to prevent water loss) like CAM plants (pineapple is an example). Others avoid the dry season altogether by spending it as seeds. Or they may have extra water storage capabilities or may have lost leaves (and their stomata) during evolution. These are all avoidance mechanisms.
We can avoid stress to the skin. The main stressors are UV and oxidative stress. Your skin may need your help to prevent damage caused by these stressors.
UV light, a main cause of skin aging, wrinkles, age spots, and more, can be prevented from reaching our skin using sunscreen.
The other big stressor is ROS*, reactive oxygen species, i.e., the pollution in city air that can overwhelm our natural antioxidant capabilities. For these, avoid smoking and secondary smoking, and use the amazing antioxidants that Skin Actives offers you.
What do you do when you are older and all of this stuff didn’t exist when you were really young and spent the summer suntanning? Then, use all the anti-aging tools that your skin and Skin Actives have. Even wearing sunscreen at this late stage in life will give your skin an opportunity to reverse some of the damage. When we remember that our skin is alive and not a passive wall, we can use all the tools that science provides us to help reverse aging caused by internal and external ROS* for decades.
Read more about skin aging and how to reverse it in my blog.
Hannah
Reference
Oh, CT; Lee, D; Koo, K; Lee, J; Yoon, HS; Choi, YM; Kwon, T-R; Kim, BJ (2014). Superoxide Dismutase 1 Inhibits Alpha-Melanocyte Stimulating Hormone and Ultraviolet B-Induced Melanogenesis in Murine Skin. Annals of Dermatology, 26(6), 681–687. doi:10.5021/ad.2014.26.6.681
How to protect and repair the skin: a new paradigm. ROS* and antioxidants.
UV exposure, aging and our remedy: UV Repair Cream
DISCLAIMER: These claims have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to diagnose, cure, treat or prevent any disease.