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Right so I've cleared my acne up quite a bit over the last year or so. It was never that bad but I do go through bad phases. Anyway, i've turned really healthy and now eat lots of vegetables, lots of fruit, lots of nuts, all my bread is wholemeal and so is my pasta. I drink lots of water, and LOTS of herbal teas from green to white to rooibos to nettle. I wash my face twice a day with the simple skin care range which I find is gentle and has no fragrance, and do the same when i moisturise. I use queen helene mint julep masque once a week as well. Finally I take zinc, biotin, multivitamin, a dose of flaxseed oil and exercise daily.
DESPITE all this, I'm still plagued by intermittent jawline/chin/mouth acne. Now some weeks I can have hardly any which is great, but then I get those weeks where it just seems to keep coming. It's usually deep painful red acne and can take a while to go. For instance - the last few days ive had none at all, and the marks from previous ones started to fade. Then all of a sudden today I feel a really painful one coming up halfway down my jaw. WHY?! It makes no sense. The only thing I let myself down with is my sleeping pattern. Which regularly hits 1 or 2 in the morning before I go to sleep. I still aim for 7/8 hours a night though. SURELY this isnt the only reason for it?
Im a 19 year old male btw. Any help?
Thanks!
With an irregular sleeping schedule, your cortisol is really messed up.
If you have too much cortisol throughout the day, that means extra inflammation, which can cause acne.
The body naturally should start lowering cortisol after the sun goes down and it will hit its lowest point at about 4 am. It then rises until approximately 8 am to wake you up.
But, you say, what if I go to sleep at 2 am every night? Then my schedule is regular and there isn't a problem.
Not so...because your body uses sunlight to adjust itself. So if you're going to sleep at some random dark hour your body basically has no clue what to do, and often will just keep your cortisol elevated constantly because depriving your body of a regular circadian rhythm...which is very stressful to the body's endocrine system.
I hear ya, though. In this day and age normal sleeping is difficult. Especially with laptops and smart phones and TVs nearby once you drop into bed.
With an irregular sleeping schedule, your cortisol is really messed up. If you have too much cortisol throughout the day, that means extra inflammation, which can cause acne. The body naturally should start lowering cortisol after the sun goes down and it will hit its lowest point at about 4 am. It then rises until approximately 8 am to wake you up. But, you say, what if I go to sleep at 2 am every night? Then my schedule is regular and there isn't a problem. Not so...because your body uses sunlight to adjust itself. So if you're going to sleep at some random dark hour your body basically has no clue what to do, and often will just keep your cortisol elevated constantly because depriving your body of a regular circadian rhythm...which is very stressful to the body's endocrine system. I hear ya, though. In this day and age normal sleeping is difficult. Especially with laptops and smart phones and TVs nearby once you drop into bed.
Thanks for the info. So what time do you suggest I aim for (bearing in mind I'm a university student)? And how many hours a night would you recommend?
Regular sleep DEFINITELY helps. If you can (I know it's tough in college... maybe almost impossible, lol), try it out for a few weeks and see what happens. Here's a link to a sleep site I used while in college... can be very helpful: http://sleepyti.me/
In case the link gets deleted for w/e reason, it's called "Sleepy Time" - will help show you the sort of sleep you should get to take maximum advantage of sleep cycles.
Edit: Fluoride is basically poison anyway. That's why you may have been told not to swallow toothpaste when you brushed in the past. Switch to a non-fluoride toothpaste and I bet you can swallow a whole bottle full without getting poisoned. Seriously. Fluoride is not good for humans.
