The Sneakiest Thief of Your Good Looks: Stress!

Stress sucks. We go to work with a furrowed brow for 8 hours, frown in traffic for 2, and wonder why those crows lines aren’t diminishing, but deepening.

The ways stress makes us miserable is making us equally ugly. Hair falls out, and loses pigment faster. Not only do wrinkles form, but acne as well. Yay! Both aging and puberty symptoms? Double whammy. Did we mention the weight gain? Yes, you can blame some of those extra pounds on your stress levels. Often, we directly inflict harm on ourselves because we feel stressed. Whether we do these to feel some modicum of control, or because the pain of a hangnail is easier to focus on than a particularly heavy problem, we still act out against ourselves. Hair pulling, skin picking, facial (and muscular) tensing, and poor diet are all active ways we participate in our own physical downgrading.

The insidious effects of stress pertain more to bodily function and the hormone cortisol. Evolutionarily, humans produce cortisol as a stress response by increasing blood pressure, suppressing the immune system, and aiding in metabolizing macronutrients. For example, by making glucose readily available for a fight or flight situation, that extra glucose frequently turns into unused fat. Basically, when your boss yells at you that a proposal should have been ready yesterday, your body treats that like a bear attack and the cortisol flows too readily, leaving you with extra stores of belly fat. Excess cortisol can also increase the speed of the hair cycle (upping the rate at which it falls out), oil production in the skin, and delicious (read: junk) food cravings, which pile onto the extra fat storage. Cells themselves have been shown to prematurely age in people who consider their lives to be high stress.

Clearly, even with all of the genetic blessings and self care in the world, stress needs to be addressed internally. Or else, you can expect it to continuously add wear and tear on your body. Some have mastered the skill of keeping the emotional baggage from weighing down their life, and the rest of us turn to extra help to reduce stress. Personally, I feel that stress as reasoning for using cannabis use has always been scoffed at. Now that cannabis has become mainstream for medicinal and recreational use, we smoke, eat, and vaporize it, and can consider it part of our beauty regimens as well. When I’ve had my evening indica smoke, I find I can calm my mind, unclench my jaw, and fall asleep by 10 most nights. I also find that CBD hemp moisturizer calms my psoriasis better than most steroid-based creams. Contrary to the stoner stigma, cannabis is an excellent catalyst for creating better habits for yourself. Don’t let stress get the best of you- find a good indica strain, and add some CBD to your bathroom cabinet… your skin will thank you.

Facts source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5579396/