Your skin is your largest vital organ, encasing your body in a satiny sheath of sebaceous cells. Your skin plays many roles in your overall health, one of which is to provide a window to internal dysfunction. If you are suffering from acne breakouts of other skin conditions, despite your best efforts at cleansing and treating your skin, it is time to look within.
Role of the Skin in Human Health:
Your skin is an amazing organ that works around the clock to keep you healthy.
- Provides a protective shield against invading microorganisms, protects against UV radiation and prevents dehydration.
- Houses proprioceptors that relay information to the brain about pressure, texture, heat, cold and pain.
- Regulates body temperature, conserving heat, or cooling the body to maintain optimal core temperature.
- Elastic properties permit movement and growth.
- Excretes water, urea, ammonia and uric acid to maintain chemical balance and eliminate toxins.
- Synthesizes Vitamin D3 from sunlight, essential for bone health and cellular metabolism.
When unwanted substances circulate in your bloodstream, white blood cells attack it and move it to the pores of your skin for elimination.
Chronic Inflammation and Skin Health
Inflammation is an immune response that is hard-wired into your body. Part of the fight-or-flight reaction chain triggered by your sympathetic nervous system, inflammation is designed to be temporary, subsiding when the threat to your health has abated.
However, in an age when emotional stress, environmental toxins, tainted water and nutrient deficient foods assault you every day, your body’s immune system stays on high alert, resulting in chronic inflammation.
Symptoms of chronic inflammation include:
- excess abdominal fat
- elevated blood sugar
- digestive disorders
- chronic fatigue
- skin flareups of acne, eczema or psoriasis
- allergies
- puffy skin and under-eye bags
- gum disease
- depression, anxiety or brain fog
- sexual dysfunction
If you are experiencing any or all of the above, you likely have chronic inflammation.
Inflammation and Leaky Gut Syndrome
One of the side effects of chronic stress and inflammation is increased intestinal permeability, more commonly known as leaky gut. The lining of your digestive tract has a certain level of permeability to allow water and nutrients to reach your bloodstream.
However, chronic inflammation coupled with poor nutrition causes your intestinal lining to become damaged, creating larger holes in the lining that let in toxins, bacteria and large food particles. The presence of unwelcome substances in your circulatory system heats up your immune response even more, and it works overtime to move large particles to your skin for elimination, causing breakouts.
Steps to Manage Inflammation and Leaky Gut
By combatting inflammation and leaky gut from within, your skin will calm down when it is no longer working overtime to eliminate toxins from your bloodstream.
Steps to eliminate inflammation include:
- stress management
- ample sleep
- adequate hydration (2 to 3 liters of plain filtered water per day)
- daily exposure to sunlight
- daily exercise
- micronutrients
Steps to heal leaky gut include:
- take probiotics, and eat cultured and fermented foods
- avoid antibiotics, which kill healthy gut bacteria
- eat plenty of fresh vegetables daily
- avoid grains, sugar and pasteurized dairy products
Failure to treat and manage inflammation and leaky gut syndrome can lead to serious metabolic disorders, chronic disease, weight gain and premature aging of your skin.
Cryotherapy to Treat Inflammation
One of the quickest and most effective ways to reduce inflammation is Whole Body Cryotherapy, or WBC. When you expose the outer layers of your skin to extreme cold, you set in motion a series of reactions that calm inflammation and activate your parasympathetic nervous system. After a WBC session, you will feel the endorphins kick in as relaxation hormones circulate throughout your body, countering the stress response and quieting your immune system.
Cold exposure causes your blood vessels to constrict, shunting blood to your vital organs and evacuating inflammatory toxins through your lymphatic system. WBC triggers the release of anti-inflammatory cytokines that travel throughout your body, reducing cellular inflammation. Regular WBC sessions will help regulate and reprogram your body to fight inflammation and its biomarkers, while promoting healthy new skin cells that are free of acne and inflammation.
Advanced Cryo NYC understands your desire for clear, healthy skin. In addition to offering whole body and localized cryotherapy, we offer CryoFacial to target breakouts, puffiness and inflammation on your face. While visiting Advanced Cryo NYC in the heart of SoHo, check out our unique menu of treatments and therapies, designed to keep you looking and feeling young, healthy and beautiful.
