Finding your radiant skin glow
For many, achieving radiant skin can at times feel unattainable. Between all the must dos and endless tips on how to get that healthy skin glow, it can be hard to know what may work best for you.
The radiance factor
Starting from within, often is the best way to help achieve that outer skin radiance. How we eat, what we consume not only as food but emotionally, alongside our physical health and gut health all contribute to our skin’s appearance. From within the body to our skin, after all our skin is our bodies largest organ. It is often thought as an overall reflection of our inner health.
Why gut health and sleep matter for skin health
Our gut does so much more then regulate and digest our food. Recent research shows it is like a second brain for us, and the gut-brain axis is an essential part of having a healthy gut. The state of our gut, and our gut microbiome impacts on mood, our sleep/wake cycle, immunity, skin and healthy neurotransmitter function, (our feel-good hormones, serotonin, dopamine and sleep-inducing melatonin) for a deep restful night’s sleep.
When we sleep, our bodies work to repair, restore and recharge. This includes our skin repair process. Getting enough sleep helps our skin health by allowing the natural restorative process just by sleeping. Other vital processes that are helped by sleep are inflammation and immunity, these both can be helped by adequate sleep hours.
When we sleep certain molecules get time to repair and switch on and off body pathways relating to inflammation and repair processes, helping settle any upset away. The same goes for our immune system, older immune cells are cleared away and new are made as we sleep. Making sufficient sleep time a vital wellness tool for skin health and wellbeing.
The easy guide to achieving healthy skin
See below for the top five easy tips to incorporate into your daily routine for helping achieve that inside to outside dewy skin glow.
1. Include pre and probiotics in your daily diet, think fibre rich vegetables, green leafy veges, leeks, broccoli, kumara with skins, cauliflower, fruits such as berries, summer stone fruits apples and pears. These all help in creating optimal gut health and friendly gut flora.
2. Adequate Sleep, if you are not already factoring in enough sleep into your daily life, then doing so can not only help support emotional health, mood, and energy levels but healthy skin alongside naturally boosting your gut health. Aiming for 7-9 hours at night of sleep time, this is the average required amount for many people.
3. Add in omega, getting enough omegas in our diet is another way to naturally top up your skin health. The right ratio of omega 3, 6 and 9 helps to maintain healthy skin and much more. Helping replenish dry skin and soothe any irritation. Including nuts and seeds, oily fish and algae such as nori or wakame seaweeds and when needed extra supplementation.
4. Hydration, the simplest but one of the top tips to help with healthy skin. Drinking enough water helps our liver function at its best, removing toxins and waste products from our body system. The general recommendation is 6-8 glasses daily for optimal hydration. This can vary depending on your own individual need.
5. Being happy, finding ways for effective stress management can help our skin, extreme chronic stress encourages more oxidative stress in the body, almost like a wear and tear syndrome. Finding ways to manage stress is crucial for everyday emotional and physical health. Just finding those things that help you, can help as an important way to destress, whether its meditating, running, reading or just being outside in the fresh air, pick what suits you best and include them in your everyday as a wellness tool and for healthy skin.
There are many options to choose from when looking to support skin wellbeing, finding what works well for you is always the most important part of the journey. Starting with a few of the top tips above can help set you up for inner health, therefore helping with your outer radiance, and the whole picture of wellbeing.
