Glowing Skin and Acne Free Tips: Preparation for CNY

Chinese New Year is around the corner, have you prepared yourself well for the celebration?

During Chinese New Year, wearing new clothes, dressing up and visiting relatives are the cultures for every Chinese. No doubt that everyone wants to have a glowing and healthy skin when meeting their relatives. What if you’re now having dull skin or acne breakouts? 

No worries, this post is designed specially for you. In this post, you will grasp the essential tips for acne-free and glowing skin. It’s never too late to start your healthy skin care routine even though the festival is just a few weeks away.

Begin with Changing your Lifestyle Routine

First of all, you need to believe that healthy and glowing skin primarily comes from the inside of our bodies. This means in order to achieve glowing skin and acne-free skin, you must begin with changing your lifestyle if your routine is not healthy.

Take a minute to ask yourself, have you get enough sleep everyday and keep yourself hydrated from time to time? Getting proper sleep is very crucial. With proper sleeping habits, you will develop a strong immune system, better mood, alleviate stress, etc. When you lack of sleep, your body will produce higher stress hormones (cortisol) due to hormonal imbalance. Therefore, proper sleep can help to reduce the inflammation in our body and balance back our hormones to reduce acne breakout. 

Besides that, with enough sleep, wrinkles formation and skin ageing can be prevented as your body can repair and regenerate new skin cells while you’re sleeping.

Water is the essential component in our body, we’re losing water throughout the day, so stay hydrated from time to time. Sufficient water intake will help to moisturize and glow your skin. Further on, regular physical activities increase blood flow where more oxygen and essential nutrients are delivered to the skin. Exercise will also increase body metabolism to remove the toxins and waste in our body, so that our skin will be more healthy. 

Maintain Good Mental Health/ Mood

Chronic stress not only weakens your immune system, but also disrupts the body’s hormonal system. Hormonal imbalance will cause more skin breakout, leading to dull skin and acne formation. Also, vitamin C is depleted during times of stress. So make sure you have sufficient intake of vitamin C everyday, especially when you’re stressed out. Here are some stress-busting activities recommended to you: 

1. Do what you love
2. Exercise
3. Yoga
4. Meditation
5. Spend time with family or friends

All these activities will increase your happy hormones such as dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and endorphin. That’s why you will feel relaxed and happy once you’ve done the activities above. 

Healthy Diet = Healthy Skin 

Believe it or not, food that we eat everyday will largely affect our skin condition, especially on our face. If you often having acne breakout, you should avoid high glycemic foods, such as:

1. White breads and rice
2. Cakes and desserts
3. Biscuits (Oreo, Chipsmore, etc.)
4. Cereals
5. Sweetened fruit juices 

All these foods will cause insulin spikes, where the hormone will be out of control. High glycemic foods are also the sources for bad bacteria in our gut. Both of these conditions will gradually contribute to acne breakouts and worsen skin conditions such as eczema and dull skin. BUT this doesn’t mean that you need to cut sugar out of your diet. Just that you’ll need to control the amount of high glycemic food you’re taking in daily. 

Instead of consuming processed food and high glycemic foods, try to consume more wholesome plant-based foods and use healthy oils to cook. Whole food is more natural, fresh and less oily. Try to consume more antioxidant fruits and vegetables as well. Vitamin C (found in citrus fruits and leafy greens) as well as Carotenoid (found in carrot and tomato) are very good antioxidants. Antioxidants can help to remove the toxic substances in our skin cells so that you will have a healthier skin and reduce acne flare up. Vitamin C is also an essential component that helps to build collagen in our body, so that your skin will be more tightened and glowing. Therefore, eating more whole food and plant-based meals will give you a healthier skin and less breakout on your face. 

Pssst… Extra tips for you!

Consume probiotic rich foods (fruits and vegetables, beans, nuts, and lentils, wholefood and fermented foods eg. sourdough bread) to maintain beneficial microflora in our intestine. This will help to grow healthy and glowing skin too! 

All in all, healthy skin definitely comes from the inner body. Focus on changing or improving your inner health to build a glowing and acne-free skin instead of relying solely on skincare products or makeup. 

Healthy looking skin starts from eating healthy. In Savor Of Life, we provide wholesome plant based foods to you. They are all dietitian curated and definitely worth a try!