15. Strategies for Naturally Glowing Skin

TL;DR: To improve skin health from the inside, reduce stress with meditation and good sleep habits, remove processed carbs and vegetable oils and include healthy fats and collagen, and improve circulation with exercise, hot and cold exposure, sunlight, and infrared or red light therapy.

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When we want better skin, we often look for a better face wash or exfoliator, or a better moisturizer, but how much attention do we pay to helping our skin from the inside rather than outside?

Our skin is our biggest organ, it does a lot more than look good, it acts as a barrier between us and the outside world, detoxifies our body, helps control our temperature, and is a window into how our health is doing. We know when we see someone with glowing skin that they’re doing more than just using the right skin products, especially as we get older! If you’re already doing all the right skin care from the outside, start looking inside.

Three of the biggest things to target for healthy skin are reducing stress, working on our diet, and improving our general health and circulation. A key to the success in these strategies is in managing inflammation. It’s good when our body triggers inflammation when it is needed to fend off infection and heal damage, but it’s only bad if we are in a constant state of inflammation in our bodies, which is common nowadays with high stress, not enough exercise, and poor food choices. Inflammation is underrated as a focus when it comes to skin care and health care in general, as it is directly related to skin aging. Not only that, but according to Harvard Medical School:

“Chronic inflammation plays a central role in some of the most challenging diseases of our time, including rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, asthma, and even Alzheimer’s.” [1]

Reducing inflammation is key for our skin and health in general! Read on for some strategies to build radiant skin that lasts the tests of time.

Stress

Care for your skin begins with care for your mind. Simply being stressed out can make your skin quality much worse. When you’re stressed, your body begins to produce more cortisol. Cortisol signals to your brain to start producing a hormone known as corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH). CRH is thought to cause your body to release more oil from glands surrounding your hair follicles. This oil can clog your pores, leading to breakouts and acne [2].

Along with leading to breakouts, a correlation between stress and other negative skin effects, such as bags under your eyes, slower healing times of cuts and wounds and earlier onset of lines and wrinkles on your face has also been established [3]

When looking to care for and improve the quality of your skin efforts should be taken to reduce the amount of stress in your life. Doing so will not only improve your skin, but will also improve your life across the board. A good place to start when looking to reduce stress is through the practice of meditation. Setting aside a mere 5 to 10 minutes a day to meditate and clear your mind can really help in dealing with stress. For more information on the benefits of meditation and how to meditate, please check out our Intro to Meditation

Sleep

Not getting enough sleep during the night can really affect the quality of your skin throughout the day. Just one night of poor sleep has been shown to lead to hanging eyelids, dark circles underneath the eyes, paler skin and more prevalence of wrinkles and fine lines [4]. Moreover, sleep is when your body does much of its repair work, so if you have damaged skin getting a good night’s sleep is essential for a timely repair.

If you are looking to improve your skin quality simply getting enough sleep can be a big step in the right direction. The Sleep Foundation [5] recommends that adults get between 7-9 hours of sleep per night so if you are regularly falling short of that you should work on carving out some more time to get some shut-eye. Your skin will thank you for it!

You should also make sure to wash your face every night before going to bed. Naturally accumulating dirt, oils and other contaminants that build up on your face throughout the day can sink into your skin overnight and clog your pores, leading to dry skin, acne outbreaks, rashes and other nasty effects on your skin quality [4]

If you have a hard time falling asleep at night and your skin is suffering as a result you may want to look into improving your sleep environment. Simply changing a few things about your bedroom can improve the quality of your sleep, thus improving the quality of your skin. For a few ideas and suggestions check out our article on Sleep Environment

Diet: Foods to Remove

The first step here is to cut out some obvious no-no’s when it comes to diet, those foods that increase inflammation and are unnecessarily aging our skin.

We all know processed foods aren’t great for us. Let’s dive into which ones are most key to avoid if you’re looking to reduce inflammation and keep bright, clear skin.

Refined carbs

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One of the worst foods for our skin and health in general include refined carbs like sodas, sugary packaged food, breads, pastas, and fruit juices. These spike blood sugar and overload your cell’s ability to use all of the extra glucose. A study in 2016 from the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology found a correlation between high glycemic index foods and acne [6].

Eating refined carbs in studies causes low grade inflammation, as well as insulin resistance, obesity, and gut permeability [7]. Don’t think you’re off the hook with diet soda either, as both diet and regular soda create inflammation in the skin [8].

There is also a link between gluten and inflammation – read more in our article here.

Processed Vegetable Oils

Perhaps worse than refined carbs is processed vegetable oils. These include corn oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, and others often found in chips, salad dressings, most fries, and other processed foods.

These oils are made by heating them to high temperatures which causes most of the fats to oxidize, then they use a chemical solvent to extract the oil from the plants, then they add chemicals to neutralize the bad smell, and more chemicals to improve the color [9]. Historically these oils weren’t foods, they were labelled as waste products until Procter and Gamble introduced Crisco into the markets in the early 1900s. These oils are quite sensitive to heat, light, and chemicals and when they are exposed to these, they form trans fats as well as toxic lipid peroxides [9].

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Another problem with processed vegetable oils is that they have too much omega 6 in them relative to omega 3, and this ratio is very key for our bodies to function well. Again, this is related to inflammation as omega-6s cause inflammation in our bodies since they are unstable and tend to react to oxygen forming free radicals. Our cells and cholesterol also use fats to build their membranes, and when we eat too much omega 6 from vegetable oils, our cholesterol can oxidize causing our immune system to see it as a threat and attack it causing plaque in our arteries [10].

Between 1961 and 2008, the amount of omega-6 in our bodies roughly doubled as we consumed more vegetable oils [11]. We should consume a roughly 1:1 ratio of omega 3 to omega 6, but right now on average it’s roughly 10:1 in the US [9]. We see that the more omega 6 (HUFA) in our tissues, the higher the deaths from coronary heart disease (CHD). If you look from USA to Greenland below, deaths from coronary heart disease is reduced 10x.

Olive oil, coconut oil, and butter are good alternatives to corn oil, soybean oil or sunflower oil since they have less omega-6 relative to omega-3.

Dairy

Dairy also plays a role in how our skin looks. Yet again this is tied to the fact that dairy increases inflammation in the body, including the skin. A study in 2017 in the Journal of Clinical and Aesthetic Dermatology found a link between dairy and acne in adult women [12].

Limit Allergens

Many people also benefit from doing an elimination diet or just removing a couple foods for a few weeks to see if they notice any benefit. Some find when they remove sugar, dairy, eggs and/or wheat for a couple weeks they start to feel really good. Sugar and wheat aren’t the healthiest foods to begin with, and for many they cause a lot of chronic inflammation. Many don’t know they have an issue with these foods since the reaction isn’t immediate. It takes many weeks and even months for the immune system to calm down after removing a problematic food.

Diet: Foods to Add

The next step is to add in foods that nourish our skin and lower inflammation.

Healthy fats

As mentioned above, too much omega-6 from vegetable oils like soybean oil are really not good for us, but on the flip side omega-3s are great for lowering inflammation [13][14][15][16]. Not only is our brain made of 8% omega-3, but omega-3 is needed in every cell in our body. It is so important that not eating it makes your brain measurably smaller, and increases rates of a number of mental illnesses as well as cognitive decline [17].

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Consuming enough fats in general is important for our skin to remain healthy. Our cell membranes are mostly made of fats, including in our skin. The layer below our skin called the subcutaneous fat layer also plays a role in how our skin looks. It thins as we age, and from other stressors like lack of sleep, as well as inadequate fat in the diet [18].

The best types of fats to get come from minimally processed animal and plant foods including meats especially grass fed beef, fish, fatty vegetables like coconuts, butters, and oils. These will have a balance of saturated fats, unsaturated fats like omega-3 and omega-6, and monounsaturated fat.

Collagen

Collagen forms 25 to 35% of the total protein in our body. It is mostly found in connective tissue like cartilage and tendons, but it also makes up 75% of our skin so it is important to get enough in our diets. Reduced collagen in our skin is mainly what is responsible for our skin developing wrinkles and sagging as we age.

We should consume between 10 and 40 grams of collagen per day, and the more animal protein we get the more our requirement increases. For every 10 grams of protein we get from animal food, we should get roughly 1 additional gram of collagen in our diets [19]. We can get this through bone broth, cooking tendons, eating cartilage in meats, eating the skin on chicken, and collagen supplements.

Choline

Choline is a member of the B vitamin family discovered after the others and supports energy production, collagen production, and elastin production, all essential for our skin to look good. It also acts as an antioxidant in our skin protecting it from free radical damage [20]. Choline rich foods include eggs, grass fed dairy, meats, broccoli, beans and beef liver.

Read more about some of the most nutritious foods in our article here.

Circulation

While there are plenty of things that can help our skin, some of the best things include the following list: exercise, cold exposure, heat exposure, and sunlight. We will give a brief overview of exactly how these things work to help the appearance and health of your skin.

Exercise

Exercise is generally speaking, an amazing thing that all people of all ages should look to incorporate into their daily routines. While for some this will mean hitting the gym hard and performing sets upon sets of deadlifts, for others, a light routine walk around the block two or three times is all you need. When it comes to skin, however, exercise helps primarily by improving our blood flow, and stimulating the release of testosterone, which is known to improve the elasticity of skin as well as have numerous anti-aging properties in both men and women.

To get the most out of the gym, read our article on the essentials here.

Cold Exposure

The benefits of cold exposure are similar to those found in exercise in some respects. For example, routine cold showers facilitate blood to more easily flow through the body. Think of cold exposure as exercise for your veins, arteries and other blood pathways. By causing them to constrict in the presence of cold water, for example, the veins etc. themselves become strong and thus can more easily allow blood to flow throughout the entire body. This directly impacts the health of the skin as more nutrients can reach more skin surface area, providing the body with a better arsenal to heal blemished skin, as well as trauma and promote the organ’s longevity.

Note: Cold exposure also has a correlation with lowered sickness in humans, as it promotes the function and creation of white blood cells throughout the body.

Get a better understanding of cold exposure and it’s benefits in our article here.

Heat Exposure

On the other end of the spectrum, we have heat exposure. Heat exposure is a wonderful way to promote the detoxification of the body’s organs. As the skin is the largest organ in a human’s biology, this has several beneficial effects for its health as well. This can be achieved with regular visits to the local wet or dry sauna, or by the investment in a personal infrared sauna. While the former two options have the ability to go quite a bit hotter than the latter option, infrared saunas boast the ability to penetrate deeper into a person’s skin, resulting in the user needing less time in use, at a lower heat, and at a higher level of detoxification. While an infrared sauna is our personally preferred choice of your options, it is important to note that both options provide the user with heightened blood circulation, which is another massive benefit to routine heat exposure.

Note: If you do decide to purchase or use an infrared sauna, be sure that the EMF’s coming from the unit are not so high as to cause health complications. Do your homework, guys!

Pro Tip: Alternating from cold exposure over to heat exposure in rapid succession (famously done in Scandinavian Spa’s) is often associated with an heighted benefit for the body (and skin), as compared to doing the two separately.

Read more on heat exposure and saunas in our article here.

Sunlight

While sunlight exposure may be a contested topic for some on its benefit for skin, the science seems pretty clear that everyone needs at least some sunlight exposure for optimal skin and general health. The reason is that direct sun exposure allows the body to create vitamin D, which promotes the health and longevity of bones, skin, and many other parts of the human physiology.

Another recent trend in healthcare is red light, in between infrared light and orange light, which you can get from red light therapy devices, as well as the sun. This frequency of light heals our skin in many ways, including increasing collagen production in our skin, which we talked about earlier in the article. It reduces inflammation, as well as promotes healing of skin and nerves. There are also studies that show that red light improves complexion, skin tone, and signs of wrinkles [21].

Note: There is an upper limit to how much sunlight exposure one should have. Too much exposure is actually associated with accelerated deterioration of the skin and overall health. Be sure to use a timer to ensure you get the Goldilocks level of exposure – not too little, not too much, just the right amount.

Read more on the benefits of sunlight, as well as red light devices in our article here.

Conclusion

To really optimize our skin health, we need to look deeper and support it from the inside. Methods to improve our skin health and health in general are to reduce stress with meditation and good sleep habits, remove processed carbs and vegetable oils and include healthy fats and collagen, and to help our circulation with exercise, hot and cold exposures and sunlight, and infrared or red light therapy.