How Exercise Can Improve Your Skin

Exercise is the key to living a fit and healthy life. It can help keep you at your desired weight, enhance your heart and lung health, improve your mood and focus, build muscle, the list goes on and on. But one thing you may not have imagined being on the long list of benefits that exercise provides is improved skin health.

Exercise can offer many skin benefits, from giving it a healthy glow to keeping it looking young. If you have been thinking about starting a regular workout routine, you have one more thing to add to the long list of benefits exercise can provide! While some people think that working out may cause more acne breakouts or other problems, it can actually help your skin look and feel better.

The skin experts at Azeal Dermatology Institute in Boulder know all the tricks to getting healthy and beautiful skin. While exercise may be the last thing you want to do to achieve the perfect skin, it could help you get that glow and youthful look you have been hoping for! If you have any other questions about your skin or issues you think need to be looked at further, feel free to contact us today. We will help you with all of your skin problems and give you the information and treatment options you need to improve your skin health.

A WebMD article talks about some of the ways that exercise affects skin. Exercise increases blood flow, which carries oxygen and nutrients to working cells throughout the body, helping to nourish skin cells. Exercise can also help remove waste product from the skin. The increase in blood flow flushes cellular debris out of the system, essentially cleaning the skin from inside the body.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the benefits and effects that exercise has on skin and be sure to sign up for the workout class you have been avoiding for months!

More Radiant Skin

An article from Experience Life discusses how exercise can give you a radiant glow and help diminish acne. They mention that working up a sweat is equivalent to getting a mini-facial. When you work out, your pores become dilated and the sweat works to remove oil and dirt that is trapped in the pores. Washing your face after your workout can remove this expelled dirt and oil and help leave your face cleaner and less likely to see a breakout.

Sweating can also help reduce inflammation throughout your entire body, regulates skin-significant hormones, and can prevent free-radical damage. Tiny arteries in your skin open up when you workout, which allows more blood to reach the skin’s surface, delivering nutrients that repair damage from the sun and other pollutants.

More Youthful Skin

Working out can also help to keep your skin looking younger for longer. The collagen-producing cells in the skin, called fibroblasts, lessen and stop working as well as we age, which causes wrinkles and fine lines. The nutrients that is delivered to the skin when working out can help these fibroblasts work more efficiently, helping to keep your skin looking younger.

In an article from New York Times, they discuss a study done that looked at the skin of male and female participants from the ages of 20 to 84. The researchers biopsied skin samples of each volunteer. When comparing the skin samples based on age, the samples aligned how you expect them too, the older ones showing more aged skin and having a thicker outer layer of skin and thinner inner layers.

But when these samples were organized into divisions based on exercise habits, the results changed noticeably. The study found that after the age of 40, men and women who exercised more frequently have thinner and healthier stratum corneum and thicker dermis layers in their skin. The older group of people who worked out regularly had skin with a closer composition to those of the 20- and 30-year-olds than to those in their own age group. Even people over the age of 65 had better skin composition.

To test if exercise was the reason for this younger and healthier skin, they took skin samples from the volunteers over the age of 65 and then had them work out twice a week for 30 minutes. At the end of this study, they took another skin sample and found that their skin now looked more like the samples from the 20- to 40-year-olds. While you may not notice you wrinkles vanishing as you start adding workout into your daily routine, but it can help keep your skin look younger and healthier for longer.

Reduces Stress

You are probably sick of hearing about stress and how it can have such a negative effect on every aspect of your body. But it is true, stress is a silent killer and can cause more problems than it is worth. Luckily, exercise helps to reduce stress! While stress may cause you to look worn out, exercise can help put a smile on your face, help you relax, and give you a brighter glow. But according to the WebMD article, exercise and the reduction of stress can also help improve different skin conditions. When your stress levels are reduced, conditions like acne and eczema can be improved. While there are other ways to reduce stress, exercise is a great way to start feeling better both mentally and physically.

Improved Sleep

Regular exercise can also help improve your overall sleep. You may be thinking “what does sleep have to do with my skin?” Well, your skin repairs itself as you sleep, the better and more sleep you get the more time you skin has to do what needs to be done. Plus, studies have found that regular exercise can allow your skin to repair faster. Better sleep can also help with stress as well.

If you haven’t noticed, the entire body is connected! It truly is amazing how our bodies work and research is still being done to learn more and more about our bodies. But it is safe to say that exercise can have a huge positive impact on our lives. Not only do you start losing weight and looking better, but we also feel better, sleep better, stress less, and have better and more youthful skin. The list really does go on and on. If you are looking to improve any aspect of your wellbeing, exercise is a good place to start.

At Azeal Dermatology Institute, we can help make sure your skin looks and feels amazing. We will help you achieve the healthy skin you want. Learn more about our Boulder dermatology services today and start adding exercise to your daily routine to further your skin and body health! Schedule an appointment today.