Stressed Skin Series: Gut Health and Your Skin
How Does Gut Health Affect Our Skin?
I get asked skin questions all the time about gut health. What we eat is definitely key when it comes to your skin. So it must apply the same way if your gut is unhappy your skin is definitely going to be affected. Our immune system gets affected by stress, lack of sleep and what we put into our bodies. I am no expert when it comes to gut health but I do know that if the body isn't being looked after your skin will see the effects.
Clean Eating is Key:
Clean Eating is Key:
I have definitely been guilty of taking care of my skin rather than what I put into my body. I have focused massively on my skincare routine but not always how I am treating my body. Drinking too much wine, eating too many sweets and not always eating clean can really affect your skin. I am not saying you have to go super clean and never enjoy yourself. However make sure to get more water in you, drink less caffeine and drink a herbal tea instead.
How Our Guts Play a Role:
How Our Guts Play a Role:
I chatted with Briony Botha known as the gut_health_girl on instagram to get some insight into gut health. Here is what she has to share on gut health:
"Just like they say the eyes are the windows to the soul, the skin is the window to the gut. When the gut is congested, stressed and toxic, the skin shows the state of the lymphatic system revealing the sluggish and toxic weight born by the colon.
Our guts also play a critical role in hormone balance and metabolic resilience and so one cannot separate a stressed hormonal presenting skin from the state of the gut. Just like we need to cleanse the skin of impurities and maintain its protective barrier, so do we need to do the same for the gut. Our microbiome needs to be robust both in the skin and in our digestive systems to build and repair our skin.
Looking after the gut is all about finding the right individual nutrition for your own body, but reducing the amount of pre prepared foods, increasing water and fiber intake are all crucial. Hydrolysed Collagen can be amazing both for the skin and also the gut as it contains amino acids which our body needs to repair the skin and gut. Colon cleansing is amazing for detoxification of the gut and skin, it always amazes me how much a clients skin changes tone and texture after a colon cleanse."
How Stress Affects My Skin:
How Stress Affects My Skin:
It's still a working progress for me because stress means I may drink that extra glass of wine. I have noticed more and more recently that what we put into our bodies can really make the things that we are predisposed to flare up. I definitely see that with the extra added stress I get eczema and if I drink alcohol it can get worse. Our diet is so key for healthy happy glowing skin.
Tips on a Getting a Healthy Gut and Happier Glowing Skin:
1. The key here is to eat cleaner. Get as many greens in, drink more water and stop those microwaved or fast food meals. You can eat really tasty healthier food and still be happy. Fresh fruit and veg, lean proteins and wholegrain breads are so good for you.
2. Look at adding probiotics into your diet. When it comes to restoring your gut microbiome, one of the best ways is to boost it is with probiotics. Probiotics are basically live bacteria that we consume, through foods and supplements, to support gut, immune health and overall wellbeing.
3. I love gut health powders as not only do you get your collagen which is basically amazing.The powders like Dear Body SA contain collagen peptides, fruit and vegetable powders, botanical extracts, novel fibre, high in vitamins and probiotics. Amazing for your gut and skin health.
4. Try having smaller and more frequent meals. This helps reduce the feeling of being overly full and takes away the discomfort.
5. Diary was a killer for me as a teen and I am still careful with it. If you really can't deal with oat milk or other milk alternatives like my daughter then go for low fat or fat free. Diary massively aggravates the skin.
It's hard to stay healthy at times but I promise you it's worth it. You can spend all the money on skincare but if you are not loving your body then you won't get that ultimate glow from within.
Shahnaz x
