There are so many ways stress affects your looks. When you think about stress and the things that it can do to you, it’s not unreasonable to assume that most people’s minds go straight to the psychological and mental toll that such anxiety can have on a person. There is no doubt that the heaviest impact of stress is felt in your mind, but did you know that stress can affect the way that you look in several different ways? Obviously, when you are going through a period of stress how you look is probably one of the lowest of your concerns, but it can still be interesting to take note of how exactly it can change your aesthetic. Here are five different ways stress affects your looks.
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Aging Skin
This is one of the top ways stress affects your looks. The more strained and emotionally exhausted you feel on the inside, the more your skin will reflect that. Stress can actually deplete the level of antioxidants in your cells, which makes them much more vulnerable to free radical damage, and it can even interfere with the power of your DNA to repair this damage too. Wrinkles will tend to show up much faster in periods of stress.
Breakouts
Your skin will often bear the brunt of the impact on your physical appearance when stress is involved. Have you ever noticed that you get a big pimple right before an important event like a first date or an exam? That’s because feelings of stress can lead to increased production of oils in the skin and the more oils that are present, the higher the chances of breakouts.
Hair Loss
It is a symptom that you often see in the movies and on TV in an exaggerated fashion, but stress definitely does have the power to cause hair loss on lots of different levels. Hair is one of the first things in your body that is compromised when you aren’t getting the right nutrients, proteins and vitamins, and when people are under severe stress, they tend to avoid eating a healthy diet.
Rashes and Irritation
Stress can affect your immune system in negative ways, which can lead to exterior things like skin rashes and irritation. If you suffer from any chronic skin conditions like rosacea, eczema or psoriasis, then for you, stress is a particularly uncomfortable thing to have to endure because it’s likely that your condition will flare up.
Dark Eye Circles
There are two reasons why stress can produce the panda eye dark circles on your face. The first is a classic lack of sleep, mostly because you are up worrying and anxious rather than resting, and the second is a possible connection to your immune system again. If you have any kind of slight food allergies, these can be exaggerated during periods of stress when your body isn’t responding in the way it should. Dark circles can appear under your eyes when your immune system isn’t doing what it should be.
