Ever wonder why some people are born with perfect skin? If you have, you may also be wondering why some of us aren’t. Our skin, many times, are a reflection of how we live, what we eat and the genes we’ve inherited. While we cannot change our DNA, we can certainly change our lifestyle.

How?

Let me explain.

Skin issues vary from person to person. You may suffer from eczema, allergy or a myriad of different issues too numerous to list. These triggers differ for you and me. However, I’ve discovered that a simple change in our daily life can drastically improve not only our skin health but also a wide range of health ailments. Including small adjustments like exercise, a healthy diet and mindfulness meditation can elevate your overall well-being and even improve your mood.

How do we do this?

Read on.

Ever ponder why individuals who exercise regularly look younger, more energetic and happier? Exercise is a powerful catalyst for improving overall health and mood. It makes you sweat, increases blood flow to supply more oxygen to skin cells, and helps detox the body. Regular exercise helps build character, muscle and makes us feel and look good from the outside to the inside.

Doing physical activity (even for just 20 mins a day) can reduce inflammation starting at the cellular level while enhancing your body’s natural antioxidants and lowering free radical damage in your body. Skin health is typically affected by cortisol levels, and a spiked cortisol count suppresses the immune system increasing inflammation throughout the body. This increase in inflammation leads to worsening skin symptoms, acne and increased chances of skin wrinkles and sagging skin. Exercise helps control these cortisol levels, reducing acne and leaving you feeling calm and collected.

When you eat processed foods, it can inhibit the efficiency of how your digestive system processes food. Overconsumption of unhealthy food can damage the small intestine’s lining, which causes toxic waste and harmful bacteria to pass into the bloodstream. This makes it easier for us to get sick and makes our skin inflamed and sensitive. So if your gut health is poor, it can detrimentally affect your body’s nutrition, which affects your skin’s elasticity and collagen and ultimately leads to dull and dry skin.

A good diet typically includes whole foods, healthy fats, healthy proteins, minimal sugar and a balance of macronutrients and micronutrients. Our bodies are essentially a machine. We need good fuel to perform efficiently.

Skin problems like eczema affect us both physically and mentally. Keeping positive while battling skin irritations is not easy task for any of us. Also, because how we look ultimately affects other people’s perception of us, handling not-so-nice comments from others can be intimidating. But like many things in life, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Sometimes it’s buried, sometimes it’s just hidden, but if you look hard enough, chances are you will find it. We cannot change the time which passes us by, but we can choose how we want to live these minutes. Living a healthy lifestyle requires us to strive for change. Whether it is exercise, a change in diet, or how we view life, integrating small changes into our routines can significantly improve our lives in the long run.