Stress Decreases Your Skin’s Natural Activity
Changes in your skin are the result of its excessive response to stress.
Tiredness from working, insufficient sleep—these are some of the things that disrupt the balance of our hormones. When this happens, the hormone cortisol is produced and acts on the skin cells, and prevents the skin from carrying out its natural activities such as production and repair.
When the skin is not able to function adequately, it is affected in various ways; the skin becomes stiff and prone to dryness, and the skin pores*1 stand out. But that’s not all.
Continual stress creates a state of “remaining cortisol,” in which the constant presence of cortisol in the skin decreases its ability to produce collagen.
This can also be linked to the aging of skin as you get older.
Fibroblast and Epidermal Cells Become “Frozen”
When there is cortisol in skin cells, they go into a “protection” mode against stressors.
“Remaining cortisol” in the skin keeps this “protection” mode constantly on and in overdrive; subsequently, the skin is unable to maintain moisture and generate dermis components.
Insufficient Sleep Increases Cortisol by 1.4 Times!
The hormone cortisol increases quite easily in a short period of time, with even the slightest stressor on the skin.
For instance, not getting enough sleep increases the amount of cortisol by about 1.4 times, and this also affects the skin.
- Pore: Pores of the stratum corneum
- Remaining Cortisol: Original name created by POLA
- Frozen: POLA discovered and named the condition when stress causes the stratum corneum to become frozen.
