92 Sneaky Causes Of Acne

Seriously, how do you get clear skin?

Having acne can be really frustrating. It seems that no matter what you do or use on your skin, your breakouts just won’t stop.

The more you try to solve it, the worse your skin gets.

Frustrating, right?

You see, beating acne is not just about applying products to your skin. It’s also about knowing what your acne triggers are and avoiding them as much as possible.

Take, for example, your diet.

Dairy products, sweets, and high glycemic foods can contribute to acne. They can disrupt your body’s hormones which causes your skin to produce more oil.

The more oil you have, the more prone to acne you’ll be.

Apart from diet, your health and the medications you are taking can also make your skin break out. Your lifestyle and stress level play a huge role in how your skin behaves, too.

Take note that acne triggers don’t work the same way for all people. There are factors that can wreak havoc on other people’s skin but not on yours.

Now, to help you understand your skin’s unique set of acne triggers better, here’s an infographic you can check out.

Hannah Do is the founder of Thank Your Skin, a beauty blog dedicated to providing honest skin care advice and information. She aspires to help her readers achieve their most beautiful skin by sharing personal tips learned through both years of experience and thorough research. Click here to check out her latest article. You can find her on Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook

Hypnosis In Dermatology

Hypnosis is the intentional induction, deepening, maintenance, and termination of the natural trance state for a specific purpose. For the much maligned stage hypnosis, the purpose is entertainment. For medical hypnotherapy, the purpose is to reduce suffering, to promote healing, or to help the person alter a destructive behavior. The hypnotic phenomenon has been used since antiquity to assist in healing.

All individuals enter spontaneous mild trances daily while absorbed in watching television or a movie, in reading a book or a magazine, or in another activity or meditation. With appropriate training, an individual may intensify this trance state in himself or herself or in another individual and use this heightened focus to induce mind-body interactions that help to alleviate suffering or to promote healing. The trance state may be induced by using guided imagery, relaxation, deep breathing, meditation techniques, self-hypnosis, or hypnosis induction techniques. Individuals vary in their ability to enter the trance state, but most can obtain some benefit from hypnosis.^[1]

In dermatology, hypnosis may help decrease pain and pruritus in the skin; intervene in psychosomatic aspects of skin diseases; and lead to the resolution of some skin diseases, including verruca vulgaris. Suggestion without formal trance induction may be effective in some cases. Sulzberger and Wolf^[2] reported on the use of suggestion to treat verrucae.

Precisely defining hypnosis has proven to be challenging. Marmer^[3] described hypnosis as a psychophysiological tetrad of altered consciousness consisting of narrowed awareness, restricted and focused attentiveness, selective wakefulness, and heightened suggestibility. For a more detailed discussion of the definitions of hypnosis, see the texts by Crasilneck and Hall^[4] or Barabasz and Watkins.^[5]Many myths exist about hypnosis that overrate, underrate, or distort the true capabilities of hypnosis.

Hypnosis can regulate blood flow and other autonomic functions that are not usually under conscious control. The relaxation response that occurs with hypnosis also affects the neurohormonal systems that regulate many body functions. Studies on the influence of hypnosis on immediate immune responses have shown the ability of hypnotized volunteers to significantly decrease the flare reaction to the histamine prick test. Similarly, in one study, the effect of hypnotic suggestion on delayed cellular immune responses has shown significant effect on the size of erythema and on palpable induration but no significant effect in other studies.

A report by Braun^[6] on different allergic responses; dermatologic reactions; and effects on seizure disorders, pain control, and healing in the same individual with multiple personality disorder (now called dissociative identity disorder) shows how much influence the mind can have on physiologic reactions and disease processes, depending on the personality present. The report also described the differences in physiologic responses and disease conditions for selected individuals under hypnosis compared with their normal waking state.

Hypnosis may be used to increase healthy behaviors, to decrease situational stress, to reduce needle phobias, to control harmful habits (eg, scratching), to provide immediate and long-term analgesia, to ameliorate symptoms related to diseases (eg, pruritus), to accelerate recovery from surgery, and to enhance the mind-body connection to promote healing.^[7] Hypnosis can be especially helpful in dealing with skin diseases that have a psychosomatic aspect. Griesemer,^[8] who was trained both in dermatology and in psychiatry, recorded the incidence of emotional triggering of dermatoses in his patients during 1 year in his practice. He developed an index for various skin diseases, with 100 indicating an absolute psychosomatic component and zero indicating no psychosomatic component to the skin disease.

Good references on the responsiveness of skin diseases to hypnosis are found in the somewhat outdated book by Scott^[9] and in the chapter on the use of hypnosis in dermatologic problems in the text by Crasilneck and Hall.^[4] Koblenzer^[10] also mentions some of the uses of hypnosis in common dermatologic problems. In an excellent resource book for patients, Grossbart and Sherman^[11] discuss mind-body interactions in skin diseases and include hypnosis as recommended therapy for a number of skin conditions.