How Intuitively Heal my Skin to Glow – Part Two

{This is Part 2 of 3 part Series}  If you missed part one, you can check it out here. 🙂

Today I am going to share with you about how lifestyle choices affect your skin’s glow.  Now that you know that obviously food makes a huge difference in how your skin looks and feels, but so does lifestyle and even more specifically physical stress!

I remember years ago saying to myself – “who cares how stressed out I am – I don’t have to worry about that.” I didn’t think stress was a big deal because I couldn’t physically see it! But over the years of my life, I realized I was very wrong and stress has a huge impact on your entire body!

So what is stress exactly?  Stress is when the body is under pressure or tension. You might feel tight in your stomach or somewhere else in your body or if you are stressed out enough – you might not even know what it is liked to NOT be under stress.

Stress is detrimental because when we are under constant stress our body is not able to heal or digest. Stress is a response and our body perceives that as danger affecting our hormones, energy, digestion, and repair mechanisms.   <<<<(That is a lot of stuff it affects!! – Yep! And all the areas have to do with your skin and optimal health!)

At first, I didn’t believe that stress would really affect my skin at all…but I have seen it directly cause cysts in multiple ways.

Some key things I noticed about how lifestyle choices affect my glow:

1. Dehydration – I drink water all the time…but sometimes life got busy or I would be out and about and couldn’t afford to pee like a mad-man especially on road trips. {yes I am that girl lol} Every time I found myself dehydrated, my skin would be more susceptible to breaking out and especially if this was combined with poor food choices.
2. Excessive caffeine – I abused caffeine a lot in high school and college.  From coffee to caffeine pills to even diet pills {yuck}, I was extremely hard on my body and I pushed myself to the limits daily.  I had a mentality of being as busy as possible and rest wasn’t an option.  Now I understand that this was extremely stressful on my body. Caffeine affects your blood sugar, your digestion, and your adrenal glands. It also is a diuretic so you pee more often and it dehydrates you. Excessive caffeine also depletes vitamins and minerals in your body like magnesium which is essential for relaxation and good sleep. {interesting how that ties in…..} And basically all of that ^^^ sets you up for a stressed out body and non-glowing skin due to your body never being able to repair itself.
3. Sleep – Like any young teenager and college student – I had my fair share of late nights. I was guilty of staying up way too late and sleeping in as much as I could before class. Even now that my schedule is more consistent – I find myself guilty of more late nights! {I am working on it – I promise!} Beauty sleep really is a thing. Going to bed between the hours of 10pm-12pm and getting around 7-8 hours of sleep is essential for balancing your hormones and repairing the body which….leads to glowing skin!

Processed food, dehydration, too much caffeine, lack of sleep, excessive cardio, and smoking are all lifestyle choices that can affect your skin and cause stress on the body! Choose wisely the  choices you make and pay attention to how they impact your body! Experiment and notice how different choices affect how you look and feel! {It is fascinating when you pay attention!}

Focus on loving and taking care of yourself. Remember that slowing down is a good thing and imagine your body healing while you rest, love, and nurture yourself daily.  Yes, this needs to be daily! Not just “oh I will rest on the weekend and catch-up”.  It does not work like that. And you might be able to be under lots of stress now…but someday your body will just give out and you will find yourself with many health problems.

When your body is at Rest than your body is Healing.

So how do you cause less stress on the body?

Here are my 3 favorite ways to rest and relax:

1. Drink Hot/Warm Lemon Water – This is seriously my favorite thing ever. Lemons taste amazing and they wake up your entire body! Lemons are packed full of vitamin C to help your skin to GLOW, your liver to detox, AND start up your digestion system! Personally, I always drink hot/warm water as this is also important for the digestive process and keeps the digestive fire going! Sometimes I even add cinnamon to my lemon water for an extra fun twist!
2. Detox Salt Baths – This is a new love and well I am in love with the entire process! Salt baths feel so good and are great for clearing your energy. The salt has magnesium in it which is an essential mineral to help the body to relax and digest. {I supplement as well} But this is a great excuse to take a bath and the perfect way to end a stressful night and give yourself some breathing room alone. <3
3. Hot Yoga – There are so many great ways I love. But yoga is too good to not put here. Specifically, I love hot yoga because I love to sweat as much as possible and then I don’t have to sit in the sauna later. Stretching, strength training, sweating, is just the perfect combo of feeling completely amazing in your body. <3 Also going to any group class is an excuse to get rid of your phone for one hour and who isn’t down for that?!?

Ooo these are soo good!! Now I would love to hear from YOU! If you enjoyed this article – leave a comment! Share it with a friend! Let me know what is YOUR favorite way to rest and relax and allow your body to heal on a daily basis! And if you don’t regularly relax now – how would you love to start adding in relaxation now?

I am going to end this post in a beautiful healing affirmation! xx

Affirmation: My body is healed, restored, and filled with energy. <3

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