Have you ever noticed a breakout before a big event, or a flare-up during a stressful week? Our skin, the body’s largest organ, can provide us with clues that our bodies may be under stress.
So, understanding how stress affects your skin may be an important step towards managing some skin conditions.
Let’s explore the connection between stress and skin health and look at ways to keep your skin supported during stressful times.
- Can stress cause skin problems?
- How does stress affect skin health?
- Ways to manage stress and skin problems
- FAQs
Can stress cause skin problems?
Your skin is not just a protective barrier; it’s also a sensory organ that sends signals to your brain. For example, a soothing touch or a gentle massage can help reduce stress and improve your mood.
On the flip side, high stress levels or emotional turmoil may show up as skin issues like acne, or eczema. This relationship highlights how closely linked our skin health is to our mental and emotional well-being and current research suggests that stress may be associated with a range of skin problems (7).
The body of evidence suggesting an association between stress and skin problems is well documented and growing. Although, a lot of research in this area is observational, meaning that it does not automatically prove that one causes the other,
One study looked at whether a higher amount of psychological stress was linked to a greater number of reported skin conditions in medical students. It found that highly stressed medical students had more skin conditions such as flaky scalps and itchy skin that the students who were less stressed (4).