Your Menstrual Cycle and Your Skin: A Tough Relationship
You’re already well aware of how your menstrual cycle affects your body with cramping, bloating, and other side effects, but you may not realize that your female hormones also impact how your skin looks and feels. There’s a good chance that you find that you start breaking out around your period, becoming just one more thing that you have to deal with in an already aggravating time, but learning about this relationship will help you conquer your skin regime.
Menstrual Cycle and Skin Timeline
For many women, there’s a decided calendar of events that happens when you get your period. You know that when you start feeling bloated or cramping in your back that it’s only a few days away. You can start having these same thoughts for a timeline with your skin. Day one of your cycle is probably presenting itself with skin that is more greasy than normal and more acne prone. By day five of your cycle, your skin has started to go in the opposite direction with it being more dry and flaky. Day 11 of your cycle is going to usher in the period of time when your skin looks and feels it’s healthiest. Day 22 has brought you back full circle to having skin that is similar to how it was on your first day being more greasy leading to acne breakouts. Those that suffer more from premenstrual syndrome may find that their skin starts to backslide out of the healthier period quicker with it happening sooner than day 22.
Treatments to Help
There are a number of things that you can do to help with your skin at a particular point in your cycle.
– When your skin is in the dry portion of the cycle, you should keep hydrated with water and increase the amount of healthy fat in your diet to help your skin become more supple.
– If you find that your skin tends to enter the greasy portion of the cycle quickly due to stress, find ways to incorporate more relaxation in your schedule with yoga, meditation, or other stress reducers.
– Exercise can be a good way to relax, and it can also help during the greasy portion of your cycle. Sweating helps to clear pores.
– A facial can also work wonders for your skin care regime if grease is a problem as the aesthetic will work to exfoliate your skin and help keep your pores clear. This can also be a wonderful time to ask for skin care advice on how you can tweak your daily regime to work better for you.
Take control of your complexion by learning about how your menstrual cycle impacts your skin. You’ll be able to start leveraging your knowledge to prepare better for how you go about your daily routines to get the best skin health.