Is your skin trying to tell you something?

Have you ever noticed that your skin changes when you’re stressed, run down, eating differently, sleeping badly, or not drinking enough water?

Maybe your skin becomes dull, dry, puffy, red, congested, sensitive or more prone to acne breakouts.

This is why, from a naturopathic point of view, we don’t just look at the skin as something to treat from the outside. We also ask a deeper question:

What might your skin be reflecting from the inside?

Your skin is not separate from the rest of your body. It is connected to your digestion, hormones, immune system, stress response, circulation, hydration and nutrient status.

So when the skin is struggling, it may be worth looking beyond creams and cleansers.

Your skin as a mirror.

In naturopathic thinking, the skin can often act like a mirror for what is happening internally.

For example, repeated skin flare-ups may be linked with things such as:

• digestive irritation

• food intolerance patterns

• sluggish bowel habits

• stress and poor sleep

• hormonal changes

• inflammation

• dehydration

• low nutrient status

• liver processing and detoxification load

This does not mean every skin concern has one simple cause. Skin is complex. Acne, redness, dryness, sensitivity and premature ageing can all have many different influences.

And in future emails I will discuss the opposite of this email! Which is how acne has it’s own complex ecosystem directly at the skin level. Which is absolutely fascinating.

However, if your skin keeps reacting, flaring or looking tired, it may be helpful to ask what else is happening in the body. Let’s look at a few examples

The gut-skin connection

One area we often think about is digestion. This is actually a main area to think about. And in many previous newsletter I have spoken about “All disease begin in the gut”.

If the gut is irritated, sluggish or struggling, the skin can sometimes become more reactive too. Some people notice their skin changes when they eat certain foods, have more bloating, become constipated, drink more alcohol, have more sugar, or go through periods of stress.

This is one reason why we may investigate gut health, food intolerance patterns, hydration, gut toxicity, bowel habits and inflammation when looking at recurring skin problems. I would use the Avatar scan (read more here) to help this or the Bioresonance gut health scan.

The aim is not simply to “cover up” the skin symptom. The aim is to understand why the skin may be reacting in the first place.

Liver, lymph and detoxification

Another part of the naturopathic approach is looking at how the body processes and clears what it no longer needs. Your liver is NOT just involved in processing alcohol! :-) It also processes hormones, chemicals, metabolic waste, controls blood sugar regulation and many other substances the body needs to break down or clear.

Your lymphatic system is one of your body’s drainage networks, helping to move fluid, immune cells and waste products through the tissues.

When these systems are under pressure, some people notice signs such as puffiness, dull skin, congestion, headaches, fatigue, hormonal skin changes or a sluggish, tired complexion.

We have both massage and osteopathic treatments that can shift lymph around to help clear it.

In naturopathy, there is also a concept called vicariation. This is the idea that when the body is under strain internally, symptoms may sometimes show up through another route — and the skin can be one of those routes.

In simple terms, the skin may sometimes be telling us:

“Something deeper needs support.”

Another Naturopathic principle is that the body heals from the “inside out”. Toxins from the inside will appear on the skin as the body pushes them out. Think of an easy example. When you get a splinter the body pushes it out, not in deeper! Then maybe think about something like boils. These would be internal toxins the body has gathered together to push out of you. If you think about it like that would you want to rub cream on it to stop it coming out and to push it back inside you?

Our approach at The Perrymount

We don’t just ask:

“What is happening on your skin?”

We also ask:

“What’s happening on the inside that the skin is telling us about?”

PureHydro supports the skin from the outside. Nutrition, naturopathy and bioresonance scan supports you from the inside out. Below you can book a special offer PureHydro facial, a bioresonance scan for gut health or book an Avatar scan with Christian.

See here for more details:
www.theperrymount.com/avatar