Healthy Habits for Clear Skin: Learn from the Top Skincare Experts

As a holistic health and fitness coach, I believe it's crucial to strive for internal balance. What's going on inside your body can impact what's happening on the outside. Therefore, I would recommend taking a look at some of the important foundations of health that may help contribute to clear, healthy skin.

Three of the key habits I would look at are:

1. Nutrition habits
2. Stress levels
3. Quality of sleep

Optimal nutrition from consuming a wide variety of whole foods is important on so many levels, including skin health. An adequate intake of omega 3 can offer anti-inflammatory benefits and help keep skin supple. Foods that are high in healthy fats can also help improve the health of your skin, and vitamin E is an important antioxidant for skin health.

Chronic high-stress levels can affect your health on a number of levels, including the appearance of your skin. Hormone disruptions and gut imbalances associated with chronically high-stress levels may show up in the skin. Examples include skin rashes and acne.

Sleep is another important area of health that can be closely related to stress levels. High stress may make it more difficult for you to get sufficient quality sleep, and a lack of sleep can make you feel more stressed. Sleep is crucial for sufficient physiological repair in the body, including the health of your skin.

These are just a few of the reasons and ways that I recommend focusing on the internal balance of the body as a way to positively affect the health of your skin.

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You know the saying, "garbage in, garbage out"? This is true of skincare, too. While some people are blessed with clear skin, lifestyle choices definitely have an impact. You skin in the largest organ in the body, and just like your heart, intestines, or liver, it requires good care. Below are some healthy habits for clear skin.

1. Drink plenty of water. Hydrated skin looks fresh, not flaky. Aim for at least 6 (8 oz) glasses per day.
2. Skip the alcohol. Alcohol can cause imbalances in hormones, which can activate sebaceous glands to overproduce oil in your skin, leading to breakouts.
3. Eat plenty of fruit and vegetables. Produce produces better skin through vitamin C, beta-carotene and other phytochemicals that fight inflammation.
4. Reduce sugar intake. Sugar increases inflammation, which can bind to collagen and make skin stiff. Chronic inflammation may lead to break outs.
5. Reduce dairy. Research suggests that dairy intake (especially in adolescents) may disrupt insulin levels and lead to acne. Ironically, low-fat dairy (such as skim milk) and chocolate milk (higher in sugar) tend to make it worse.

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There are several things you can do for clear skin, or rather, I would say, for healthy skin. The simplest thing to do is to wash your face twice a day using a good face cleanser. Pat dry your face with a clean towel as rubbing your face can get abrasive. There is also some research that suggests, that drying your face after washing may remove moisture from the face.

Other health habits for clear skin is to use a facemask once a week, or to use a good facial home routine. I personally like using natural home recipes to create masks and exfoliators. A healthy diet (cut down on sugar) is also important for healthy skin including exercise and drinking plenty of water to clear toxins. In my opinion, not a lot of emphasis is given to the benefits of sleep. But for clear healthy skin and for overall health, good sleep is very important and is backed by science.

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Opt for soothing ingredients that don't irritate the skin, especially if you suffer from acne, which is partly an inflammatory condition. Inflamed skin needs calming treatments. Often when people have acne, they want to reach for the most potent product they can find to get rid of their pimples.

But when your skin feels a tingling sensation from products that sting, it's your skin's way of telling you it's being irritated. Irritation leads to inflammation. Before you know it, you're in a vicious cycle of treating inflammatory acne with inflammatory skin care products, which can contribute to more acne.

Soothing ingredients such as green tea extract, pumpkin seed, and passionflower calm redness and irritation while healing and protecting the skin. Benzoyl peroxide is great at killing acne bacteria but can be harmful to the skin in high percentages.

Stick to products that have about three percent benzoyl peroxide. At this level, it's effective without being irritating, especially if it has other soothing ingredients in it.

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Diet is so important for clear skin. Many people underestimate the effect their diet has on their skin, but having suffered spots and acne since a teenager, it’s only now I’m in my thirties I’ve finally found the secret to clear skin. A healthy nutritious plant based diet with minimum refined sugars, refined carbohydrates or greasy foods is the best thing I’ve done for my skin. Having always suffered with bad skin, since going vegan and cutting out dairy (I was already vegetarian), my persistent spotty skin and acne cleared up within around six months and has never returned. A minimal skincare routine has also worked. Taking inspiration from my husband who always has clear skin, and does nothing to his face each day, I now only use a light organic natural cleanser once or twice a day. I don’t wear makeup or put anything else on my skin to keep it clear.

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For some, clear skin comes easily. For others, it takes some work, and that's fine! Regardless of your skin type, it's essential to wash your face twice a day, ensure you remove all signs of makeup in the process. Moisturize, exfoliate, and, most of all, avoid foods that cause irritation.

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When it comes to clear skin there are a few nutrients that are real heroes including Vitamin E, Vitamin C, Vitamin A, Zinc, Biotin and Selenium. Eggs, green leafy vegetables, orange foods, nuts and seeds such as almonds and sunflower seeds are naturally high in in these nutrients.

Refined sugar or processed sugar is inflammatory and can trigger two processes one is called oxidation which can increase breakouts. The other is called glycation which can lead to the breakdown of collagen and elastin in your skin and cause skin aging.

Antioxidants and omega-3 are antiinflammatory and can help to reduce breakouts. Berries are rich sources of antioxidants. Omega-3 can be found in fish such as salmon, herring and sardines. Vegan sources include algae, flaxseed, chia seeds and walnuts.

Try adding a skin supporting salad to your day by mixing leafy green vegetables, sweet potato, capsicums (bell peppers) and broccoli, topped with a 1/2 thumb sized portion of nuts and seeds and flaxseed dressing.

Finally, make sure your are getting enough water to help remove toxins such as free radicals from your body.

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In my 30s, I started noticing cystic acne. I did a lot of research on why I might be getting it. Cystic acne is due to hormonal imbalances. I read a lot about dairy and whey products causing cystic acne. After I cut out dairy, I saw my skin improve dramatically. Drinking a lot of water is also really important for skin health. I try to drink a gallon of water a day. Exercise is also really important for healthy skin. Another clear skin tip I have is to make sure you exfoliate at least once or twice a week to get rid of dead skin cells.

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Always wash your face, in the morning and evening, to make sure to clear all the dirt and oil off your face. Never sleep with your makeup still on! This could be a huge reason why you're having breakouts. Besides that, learn to stop touching your face all the time. You're constantly touching things that have germs and bacteria so, putting your hands on your face transfers all of that onto your skin. Make sure to clean your hands, phone and makeup brushes often too in order to prevent getting all those germs and bacteria on your face.

Moreover, getting enough sleep is also very important. Not sleeping enough can make your hormones get out of whack and raise your body's stress levels, which can make you breakout. On another note, overall stress (because of work, school, private situations, etc.) can cause you to break out more often so you want to make sure to keep your stress levels low.

Drinking enough water is also a must for clear skin because it'll help keep your skin moisturized.

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Cleansing skin with a hypoallergenic facial cleanser at least twice daily, using a gentle skin toner, and gentle non-comedogenic moisturizer.

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The best healthy habits I found are to cleanse twice a day, moisturise and drink plenty of water. Keeping a simple skincare routine and upping your water intake will show visible results that will smooth out your skin, hydrate and help clear imperfections. Using targeted skincare for your skin type is also very important!

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