Age is only a number, right?
It’s the kind of sentences that you expect your mum or your old aunt to say. It’s what everybody says when they’ve reached an age where it’s not meaningful to keep track of the years anymore. Besides, it’s also a fantastic excuse to stay young at heart. You can claim you feel 15 forever, and subtly ignore the question of how old you are – especially useful when your younger years are behind you.
But age can show on your face and your body in a variety of way, whether you’re struggling with puberty acne or with wrinkles. In fact, for a lot of people, age is a lot more than a number. It’s a physical affectation that can manifest itself at any time. Sometimes, your body can be tricked into displaying age-related issues as a result of stress. Here are the 5 times stress makes your body lies about your age.
Acne outbreaks are for kids, right?
Your skincare regime plays a significant role in your self-esteem. A clear and smooth skin may not be the secret to feeling good about yourself, but it’s definitely one of the key ingredients! It’s not uncommon for conscious individuals to turn to organic products to help with their blemishes and spots, as your skin might be sensitive to chemical ingredients. However, even they can’t help when stress starts messing on with your hormones and immune systems. Indeed, highly stressful situations can lead to your skin struggling to get rid of excessive sebum production. The sebum clogs up your pores, your skin feels inflamed, and you end up covered in spots. It may not be the solution to your acne issues, but if nothing has helped so far, you might want to start monitoring your anxiety and stress, as they might turn your facial features back to puberty times!
OMG, am I going bald?
Have you noticed abnormal hair loss when brushing your hair? Or perhaps you’ve discovered with horror a bald patch growing on the side of your head. Chill out. Literally. Anxiety can lead to health conditions that facilitate hair loss, which can create a vicious circle in which your hair loss disorder feeds your anxiety. Of course, as soon as you notice anything out of the ordinary, you should immediately consult a doctor, as anxiety can be difficult to manage on your own. You need to struggle with a severe stress disorder for it to lead to hair loss. Your hair might be getting fine and growth might be considerably slowed by stress, which is a common condition. However, your anxiety might be causing bald patches to appear on your scalp, with means the hormones don’t recognise your hair anymore. If this is the case, you might need to receive separate treatment for your hair and your stress disorder. Finasteride can easily be purchased and delivered online in the UK to help you fight hair loss. This treatment acts on hormonal levels.
Eww, is that grey hair?
As a rule of the thumb, women start to go grey around 35, but there are plenty of people who record their first grey hair at high school too. The melanin is what causes your hair to be naturally coloured. Hair that has lost most of its melanin is grey, while white hair has lost all its melanin. However, you are unlikely to turn your hair grey overnight because of exam stress or flight delay issues. Your body produces hormones that can affect the cells that determine hair colour only in one kind of situation: On-going, chronic stress. While there is no clear relationship between stress and grey hair, it’s fair to say that people who work in a highly stressful environment tend to go grey at a younger age.
I’m too young for wrinkles
Tight deadlines, meetings and everyday challenges can lead to stress and exhaustion, in such low levels that you might not notice it until it’s too late. Until you look in the mirror and see small crow’s feet around your eyes. Are you ageing prematurely? The answer is, unfortunately, yes. Stress affects the elasticity and firmness of your skin, leading to wrinkles as early as in your 20s!
Stress affects your joins
If you have fragile joins that can easily get inflamed, a stressful situation can increase the pain and generate arthritis, regardless of how young you are. Indeed, stress can accentuate the joint inflammation. Arthritic pain is partly caused by molecules called cytokines, which can also be released as a response to stress.
From joint pains to acne outbreaks, stress can take your body through different age stages. There’s no miracle solution: you need to know how to relax and let go of your tensions.