What Your Skin Reveals About Your Health

Take a second and look at your skin from head to toe. What do you see? Many people observe wrinkles, acne, eczema, uneven rough skin or rosacea. Although these are all conditions we wish to live without, they're also gentle whispers of the body telling us there's an imbalance going on inside that needs to be addressed, so they shouldn't be ignored.

The skin is a mirror of what's going on inside the body. What's it trying to tell you? Maybe you need to detox, add more nutrients to your diet or even reduce the stress in your life. Your skin often gives you clues to what it needs — all you need to do is pay attention.

Here, the main imbalances in the body, the skin issues they manifest as and what to do about them:

Skin Issue: Acne

Internal cause: Toxic buildup, leaky gut, bacteria imbalance, hormonal imbalance

Acne often appears when the body is dealing with more toxins than it can handle. If the liver is overloaded and can't process the toxins coming in, it will often push those toxins through the skin.

Acne is also a sign of an unhappy gut. Food intolerance and a leaky gut can lead to blemishes because the body is sensing toxins in the blood that have leaked through your gut lining. Many studies have found that acne sufferers have imbalances in their gut bacteria, with more bad bacteria and yeast in the body than healthy, cleansing bacteria. Acne that appears around the mouth and chin is usually a sign of hormonal imbalance.

Skin Issue: Wrinkles and/or dry, dull skin

Internal cause: Nutrient deficiencies

Although our skin will change as we grow older, wrinkles and dry dull skin are often a major sign of dehydration and nutrient deficiencies. I often tell my clients to drink at least 70 ounces of filtered water and incorporate healthy fats like avocado, coconut products, olive oil, fish and nuts every day for 30 days and they'll notice a significant difference in their wrinkles and skin tone.

Skin Issue: Rosacea

Internal cause: Toxic buildup, leaky gut, bacteria imbalance

Similar to acne, rosacea has also been linked to toxic overload and bacterial imbalance in the gut. Conditions like Crohn's, celiac disease and bloating often come along with rosacea. Healing the gut with diet and probiotics often improves and eliminates the rosacea.

Skin Issue: Eczema

Internal cause: Allergy, leaky gut, toxic buildup

This condition is often triggered by an allergy, food sensitivity or stress of some kind. I always recommend doing an elimination diet to determine what your trigger foods are. Keeping a food journal also allows you to see how the food you eat is effecting your skin as you might notice more breakouts around the time you eat certain types of food.

Many people struggling with eczema also have intestinal permeability or leaky gut and the body is responding to the food and toxins that are slipping through the gut lining. I've also found that many of my clients with this condition also have high levels of stress. I often recommend clients go on a gut healing diet, incorporate daily stress relieving techniques such as deep breathing/meditation and address any bacterial infections and their eczema dramatically improves.

Solutions for glowing skin:

Detox daily: With the insane amount of toxins we're exposed to on a daily basis, the body needs all the help it can get to detoxify and keep its skin glowing and clear. To detoxify daily, try dry brushing, oil pulling, alternating hot/cold in the shower, drinking detoxifying teas such as ginger, turmeric and milk thistle, and incorporating foods such as apple cider vinegar, spirulina and tons of vegetables.

Balance hormones: Avoid sugar and processed foods, reduce stress, support your detoxification organs and eat a hormone-balancing diet.

Eat nutrient-dense foods: Getting the right amount of macro and micro nutrients in your diet is just as important as getting the toxins out. Our skin needs certain nutrients to be healthy and glowing. Particularly Vitamin A, Zinc, Vitamin C, Omega-3 Fatty Acids, Biotin, Vitamin E, Pantothenic Acid (vitamin B5), Selenium, Silica, Niacin, Vitamin K2 and Probiotics.

These can be found in a variety of foods, including leafy greens and vegetables, fruit (berries in particular), nuts and seeds, organic animal products such as fish, eggs, organ meats and super foods like chia seeds, spirulina and fermented foods.

http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-16274/what-your-skin-reveals-about-your-health.html

Why Caring for Yourself Makes All the Difference.

 Like the song says, it is the greatest love of all


If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion—Dalai Lama

The 2,500-year-old Buddhist tradition contains some fundamental truths about human nature that Western science is slowly beginning to embrace. One is that humans, like all members of the animal kingdom, are inherently social beings. Our brains are wired for love, connection, and cooperation. But the individualism, social isolation, and competition of modern society have led to imbalance within ourselves, in our relationships, and with nature. We see the results in current epidemics of anxiety, loneliness, pain, and obesity. Yet if we lack connection in the external world, we still have the ability to create it in our internal worlds through compassionate practices, and thereby reap some physical and psychological benefits.

What is Self-Compassion?
Dr. Kristin Neff, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, is the pioneer of self-compassion as a tool to promote psychological healing, well-being, and better relationships. She contrasts self-compassion with self-esteem in that it does not require us to elevate ourselves above other people and compete with them. While high self-esteem is generally based on evidence of superior achievement, self-compassion is a more constant personal quality, in which we value ourselves and treat ourselves kindly just because we are human. And this caring attitude to ourselves helps us to recognize our similarity and connection with other humans, who share with us common aspirations and sources of suffering.
Does Self-Compassion Turn Us Into Wimps?
Self-compassion does not make us spoiled or weak, but rather is a learned coping strategy that research shows can decrease anxiety and enhance resilience and recovery from the effects of stress. It also does not require us to deny and suppress negative aspects of our experience. In fact, part of Neff's definition of self-compassion is mindfulness—or a balanced holding in consciousness of all facets of our experience, without overreacting to them. The essence of self-compassion is to acknowledge our own emotional suffering and then deliberately comfort ourselves by generating feelings of warmth, softness, and care toward ourselves and, by association, all living beings who are suffering.
How Do Children Develop Self-Compassion?
Self-compassion is a skill that can be learned, and improved through learning. Children learn by watching how caretakers, especially parents, react to them. If children get punished for expressing anger or sadness, they learn that it is bad or even dangerous to feel these states. If their sharing about life's disappointments and rejections results in stern criticism and expressions of contempt, they become contemptuous and critical of themselves. Therein lie some of the roots of human misery. The normal social and academic challenges presented by school and peers become compounded by social learning. Children with critical, neglectful, or rejecting parents now learn a layer of negative labels to put on themselves when they are less than perfectly accepted and successful.  On the other hand, those lucky ones who have caring, attentive parents learn, via the experience of being warmly comforted and cared for, how to take care of themselves when they are sad or have been let down by life. Research shows that securely attached children are more self-compassionate than children with anxious or disorganized attachment styles. Cultural factors also play a role. If the culture emphasizes fear of punishment as the basis of learning, levels of self-compassion will be lower overall.
What are the Benefits of Self-Compassion?
Research by Neff and colleagues shows that self-compassion decreases anxiety in evaluative situations, such as being asked about one's weaknesses in a job interview. Self-compassion is also associated with higher and more consistent levels of well-being than self-esteem. When self-evaluations are not dependent on constant proof of achievement, we feel more relaxed and better about our lives. Self-compassion is also associated with more curiosity and exploration. When we don't beat ourselves up for failure, we are freer to try new things and make mistakes as part of the normal pattern of learning and growth. More self-compassionate people are also more willing to take responsibility for their contribution to situations that don't turn out as planned. When making a mistake is not the end of the world, we are freer to confront our mistakes, learn new skills, and make amends, rather than hide away in shame.
Can Self-Compassion Make Me Healthier?
A 2007 study by Neff and colleagues suggests that self-compassion may be an important tool in weight-management and in overcoming emotional eating. Students were given donuts to eat, but half were assigned at random to hear a compassionate comment from the experimenter, such as, "Don't beat yourself up about eating these; subjects eat them all the time." The other half received the donuts without the comment. Later that day, when given the chance to eat candy, those who heard the compassionate comment ate less. Therefore, self-compassion may help to prevent emotional eating resulting from feeling bad about breaking dietary restriction rules. Future research is needed to look at whether these benefits are also found in clinical populations such as obese people or those with eating disorders.
In summary, self-compassion appears to have many benefits. When we treat ourselves kindly, we learn to soften and open ourselves to all kinds of experiences, including our own emotions. We may also become more accepting of others when we focus on our common humanity.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-mindful-self-express/201202/why-caring-yourself-makes-all-the-difference