Skin care: How stress affects acne?

Acne is one skin aliment that will give you sleepless nights. It doesn't make for a very good 'close-up pic' for Facebook and becomes a bother when you're dressing up for that important social event. However, stressing over acne will only amplify the skin problem. Yes it's true, stress can affect acne.

We take a look at the link between stress and acne and why stressing over acne will just make it worse.

This may be a common scenario, when it's time for an exam, test or interview you start noticing skin problems like pimples and acne. This is when you run helter-skelter searching for the perfect cream to squash out the problem. For a long time doctors have pointed out that stress affects acne, but scientists had a tough time joining the dots.

But recently scientists have thrown a hint into the abyss of dermatology; they suggest that cells that produce the oily substance sebum have receptors for stress hormones. Sebum is a bad substance that mixes with dead skin cells and bacteria in the process clogs up hair follicles, resulting in acne and pimples. When you are highly stressed, a lot more sebum or oily substance is formed, causing a lot more acne.

However, this research is inconclusive. While sebum secretions do increase during stressful times, it doesn't ensure the occurence of acne. Therefore, the jury is still out on how exactly stress affects acne as the root cause could be something other than sebum over-production.

In order to eliminate the effects of stress on acne, ensure that you tackle stress the right way. Organisation and planning can ease out stress during examination time; during interviews show your brave side and let your hard work do the talking. Stress free equals acne free.