Skin irritation can be a feeling of slight discomfort or pain. You’ll often feel itchy in a certain area of your body, and sometimes you may experience the itchy feeling all over your body. Chemicals, wool, or soap can cause skin irritations.
According to the American Academy of Dermatology Association, acne is the number one irritation affecting up to 50 million young Americans yearly. While acne affects 85 percent of adolescents and youth, it can still occur at later stages of life, from 30s to 40s.
As the number of skin irritation cases keep growing, with women being the most affected, it would be best to determine the real causes of such issues for better remedies. Lifestyle is one of the major causes of skin irritation, and here is how.
Drinking
Water is the best drink for your health as it plays a key role in the wellbeing of your skin. Properly hydrated skin will effectively balance natural oils and easily get rid of toxicity and dead skin cells. Alcohol also specifically is known to dehydrate your body.
Alcohol increases the urine production in your body, flushing out excess salt and water, but at the end of the day, alcohol leaves you dehydrated, unless you alternate it with water. It also leaves your skin dry, which leads to excessive oil production to make up for the loss of water, eventually increasing the risk of skin breakouts.
Alcohol is known to weaken your immune system naturally. A weakened immune system can easily permit bacteria under your skin, causing acne and skin blemishes to appear. Alcohol also leads to an imbalance of estrogen and testosterone.
Smoking
Your skin can absorb nicotine from cigarettes easily, causing adverse effects, including delayed wound healing, increased infections, and premature skin aging. Smoking also causes skin diseases such as eczema, psoriasis, and skin cancer.
Nicotine promotes cell death or apoptosis, damaging blood vessels in your skin and eventually reducing blood flow. In addition, it changes the function and structure of skin fibroblasts, the type of skin cells responsible for keeping your skin tight and maintaining its firmness.
Smoking is an independent skin irritation factor that causes the formation of wrinkles from the middle to the lower third of your face. It promotes the formation of melanocytes in your skin, resulting in dark spots or age spots. Other effects of smoking include sagging skin, infections, and eye diseases.
Quitting smoking can restore your skin.
For instance, redness and age spots may reduce in a month’s time; it can reduce signs of aging, restore your skin’s collagen production, and prevent you from developing skin conditions.
Certain Medications
Drugs interact with your endocrine system in many ways. They may promote the secretion of certain hormones, alter their removal rate from plasma, change plasma and protein-binding traits, and alter metabolism. Any medication that affects your hormone levels can cause acne breakouts through stimulation of the sebaceous glands.
A series of drugs, including antibiotics, and tuberculosis drugs, drugs with halogen compounds, and corticosteroids, among others, cause drug-induced acne. Aside from medication, sleep deprivation could also cause skin breakouts by directly affecting your emotional state, hormonal factors, and stress levels, which are the main factors that cause acne.
Sleep Deprivation
Lack of sleep can also trigger skin breakouts indirectly by causing reduced immunity of your body, weakening your body’s ability to defend your skin against germs, microbes, and infections. Lack of sleep can cause an increase in hormonal levels, resulting in stress and other emotional states that can easily trigger acne.
Sleep deprivation also increases your chances of being depressed. Depression and anxiety are some of the leading mental health conditions that easily trigger skin irritation. Therefore, you need to invest in quality sleep to help you relax and reduce the chances of depression to a concerning extent.
If the quality of your mattress has been the cause of your sleep deprivation, consider upgrading to a Nolah signature 12-inch mattress to improve the quality of your sleep and restore a natural and healthy complexion or glow to your skin.
Time to Take Care of Your Skin
You need to care for your skin just as you would for any other part of your body. Taking care of your skin is essential as it helps it stay in its perfect condition and maintain its firmness and texture. Your skin sheds itself daily, hence, the need to take care of it.
Consider a skincare routine that starts with gentle morning and before bed cleansing to remove pollutants, dead skin, oil, dirt, and bacteria. Use eye cream at least once daily to maintain your facial skin’s youthfulness.
For any prescribed acne treatment creams, ensure that you apply them on a dry and fully cleansed skin, always remember to moisturize your skin to prevent dryness and irritation.
