Skin wellness

Healthy skin enhances wellbeing. Healthy skin with an intact acid mantle provides a multitude of vital benefits…

  • Protects us against:
    • Drying out (surface oils protect from excessive water loss).
    • Infection and pathogens (anti-microbial).
    • Trauma (elastic – resists cuts and tearing).
    • Heat (helps retain body temperature).
    • Light (helps protect against burns from light sources).
    • Chemicals (provides a level of protection against chemical burns).
  • Helps us sense our environment – by touching.
  • Helps us make vitamin D.
  • Helps us with immunity (Langerhans cells of the immune system in the skin).
  • Communicates health by its good colour, healthy glow and plumpness due to good collagen and elastin levels.

Feeling good in your own skin – a part of your overall wellness

People today have more tools than ever to take their healthcare into their own hands, and many are – starting with their skin.

Why is self-care important for skin wellness?

As your largest organ, your skin is affected by internal factors ranging from hormones, illness and stress to such external factors (the exposome) as air pollution and smoking. Taking care of yourself helps safeguard your skin against the exposome and strengthen your own wellbeing and resilience.

Along with a skin care program using ēcōMD products, your self-care regime could include any or all of the following activities:

 

Lifestyle Wellness Tools

Sleep

Essential for overall health, a good night’s sleep is vital for maintaining “housekeeping” functions like waste removal, leading to cleaner, clearer skin.

Nutrition

Our diet and gut microbiome play huge roles in the inflammatory processes affecting skin health. Diets high in anti-inflammatory foods, antioxidants, prebiotics and probiotics can support skin health.

Exercise

Wellness practices such as nature walks promote healthy cellular growth and blood circulation. Get your heart pumping. Exercise also mobilizes your body for action, helps you feel in control of your circumstances and equips you to better combat acute and chronic stress.

Mindfulness/meditation

Meditation helps you deal with stress, allowing your body and skin to repair themselves. Different types of meditation deliver different benefits. Mindfulness meditation cultivates non-judgmental awareness, discipline, attention control and emotional regulation. Transcendental meditation promotes calmness, restful alertness and heightened self-awareness. So-called ‘loving kindness and compassion’ meditation fosters empathy and positive relationships.

Stay clean

This one is quite literally a no-brainer. Substance abuse – smoking, alcohol, drugs, etc. – is destructive to skin health. Moderate, minimize or (best) avoid exposure to addictive and harmful substances. And use clean personal care products.

Stay positive

Cultivating spirituality and maintaining a positive mindset help keep you in a restful state, allowing you to digest health-giving foods better and absorb their nutrients more effective – resulting in improved cellular regeneration and repair. And healthier skin.

Be sense-able

Activities that stimulate your senses, challenge your cognitive and motor abilities and enhance your social interactions are great for maintaining positive neural changes throughout your lifetime. Dancing, playing music, aromatherapy, traveling, hiking and volunteering enrich your life. The healthy boost to your neurons is reflected in the radiance of your skin.

Take a deep breath

Physical exercise involving controlled breathing – yoga, tai chi and others – help you endure chronic stress. Deep breathing activates the vagus nerve. Vagal activation mitigates the stress-inducing activity of the fight/flight/freeze branch of the nervous system, and activates the rest/digest branch, which favours healthy cells, and healthy skin.

Digital detox

Constant use of high-tech equipment can damage your skin by reducing its protective functions. Take time to disconnect in order to reconnect – with your wellbeing.