Skin clinic secrets: lifestyle and skin health

Your skin can betray all of your secrets, if you don’t know how to hide them! If you’re not sleeping enough, not drinking enough water, and not cleansing your skin, then this is going to translate into your skin’s appearance and health. A lot of complex skin conditions such as medically diagnosed acne can be genetic and has nothing to do with how you treat your skin, but there is a definite link between a decline in typical skin quality and your lifestyle. As your dedicated skin clinic in London, we want to share with you the link between your lifestyle and your skin’s appearance and health.

How smoking affects your skin

It’s estimated by Cancer Research UK that 19% of British adults smoke, that’s 9.4 million adult cigarette smokers. If you are a regular smoker, then you may notice your skin quality beginning to decline as you age. Some of the toxins in cigarette smoke damage collagen and elastin, which are skin fibres essential to keeping your skin firm, supple, and bouncy. We naturally stop producing collagen in our 20s, and by our 30s it is beginning an unyielding decline. Smoking accelerates this decline, causing an onset of premature ageing signs such as volume loss, fine lines, and wrinkles. Smokers will also encounter vascular constriction, which is when blood in your skin inhibit blood flow and oxygen reaching the skin cells, causing them to age and grow unhealthy. This could also happen across your body too, so it isn’t just limited to your face. Ask your skin clinic how smoking could affect your skin.

How alcohol affects your skin

Alcohol dehydrates your body, which is one of the main constitutions of a hangover, and it does this to your skin too. Drinking too much and too regularly has been linked to depriving your skin of vital vitamins and nutrients. Dehydrated (or hungover) skin appears irritated, flushed, and puffy because of the lack of water retained in it. This is because when you are hungover and dehydrated, your body redirects its water supplies and moisture to more vital parts of your system like your liver and kidneys. The first place it goes for this moisture is your skin, because it is least needed there. Also, because alcohol is full of sugars and toxins, you can actually sweat it out over the night and the proceeding day, which can result in blemishes. Even some more complex and stubborn skin conditions like rosacea have been linked to excessive alcohol consumption.

How sleep affects your skin

Sleep is when your skin takes its opportunity to heal itself and repair the damage from the day, so if you’re not sleeping enough or at the right times then you’re depriving yourself of this important renewal. When you don’t get enough sleep, your moisture levels and pH balance in your skin change. This leaves your skin dry, red, irritated, and even prone to breakouts because its internal mechanisms have been thrown out of sync. Alcohol affects your sleep too in that it stops you from reaching REM (rapid eye movement), a stage of sleep where your brain synapses and skin are healed and recharged. You don’t need a skin clinic to tell you that you need between 7 and 8 hours of sleep to keep it vibrant and healthy.

Skin clinic advice

Here at L’Atelier Aesthetics skin clinic, we don’t just focus on your skin but on your lifestyle and wellness too. We take a full picture look at the quality of your lifestyle and how it translates to your skin so that we can build a tailored plan and our advice completely around your needs. If you’d like to make your unique skin clinic appointment in Mayfair & Harley Street, get in touch on 0207 637 3208.