Want to know how to get rid of spots, acne, blemishes, zits, plukes, breakouts or whatever else you may call them? Read on!
Spots and acne, as I'm going to refer to them here, are a problem that can cause misery and frustration. Spots generally strike during puberty but can continue well in to adulthood. I know this from experience. Despite the fact that my mum told me my skin would clear up by the time I was eighteen, I had spots, every day, well in to my forties. Some people are lucky enough to go through their teenage years with clear skin or only the occasional spot but develop full-blown acne in later life.
If you're suffering with bad skin wouldn't it be great to know what might be causing the spots and how to get rid of them?
Here are some simple strategies to help you get rid of spots together with some insights in to why the common ways to treat spots and acne are often counter-productive.
If you want to know how to get rid of spots it's helpful to understand what causes spots in the first place. There can be many causes from diet, to vitamin and mineral deficiencies, to stress, to hygiene, to hormone imbalance. For some people it will be just one factor that causes the acne. For others it'll be a combination.
So what I would suggest is that you read through this article to get an overall picture of what causes spots and acne, think about which factors might relate to you and then .... experiment!
Try things out. Make some changes. And watch what happens!
And please send me your comments. It's always good to hear from people who have been reading my articles.
Most doctors will tell you that spots and acne are not affected by diet. They'll claim that it doesn't matter what you eat and that the way to treat breakouts is with topical lotions or antibiotics. I beg to differ! Big time! I had spots on my forehead and chin every day from puberty until .... well, until I changed my diet. Now? Maybe one spot every six months. And I always know why it's appeared. And how to get rid of it.
Many sufferers, if their problem with spots has been severe and persistent, will have been prescribed acne medication in the form of antibiotics. Treatment can go on for months and although this is usually effective in the short term, the acne often returns as soon as the medication ends. This is because the medication treats the symptoms, it doesn't get to the root cause.
It's a bit like a warning light flashing on the dashboard of your car. You take the fuse out. The light goes of. Problem solved? Of course not. There's still something wrong with the engine. Acne is a warning light; a sign that something is wrong internally. It's your body's best effort to deal with the problem. Getting rid of the acne without looking deeper isn't the solution. The problem that caused the acne in the first place will still be there.
It's far better to look at what might be out of balance, treat that and then view the improvement in the skin as a sign that you are moving towards better health.
There is something else to be aware of when it comes to treating acne with antibiotics. Antibiotics kill bacteria. This is clearly a good thing if you are wanting to get rid of a life-threatening bacterial infection and many of us may not be around today without them. However, the problem is that antibiotics don't discriminate between the 'bad' bacteria that causes infections and the 'good' bacteria that we need to support our digestion.
So, in short, if you treat acne with antibiotics you may get rid of the spots but end up with a digestive problem instead. This becomes even more important when you consider that acne is linked to poor digestion. I'll explain later in more detail exactly how acne can be linked to poor digestion but for now I'd just like you to hold that thought in your mind and ask yourself this - if your acne is linked to poor digestion surely it's a bad idea to treat your acne with something that makes your digestion poorer?
When clients come to see me for help with skin conditions I'm not so much concerned with what's going on on the surface as with what's happening at a deeper level within the body. I take the view that the acne problem is just an indication that something somewhere is out of balance; it's the warning light. Most often the problem is to do with the elimination of toxins. There is a process whereby toxins are moved through the body to be eliminated via the bowel and the bladder.
The skin is also an organ of elimination and so if the body is having difficulty eliminating through the bowel and bladder it may use the skin as a way to ease the strain.
When elimination is working well we tend to feel fine and our skin is clear. However if your lymphatic system is over-whelmed, your bowel isn't functioning particularly well or your liver and kidneys are struggling your body will find another way to get rid of the toxins. You skin is an obvious route out. Although for some people it's the upper respiratory system that's used and they'll get a lot of mucus.
Some people get both. Spots and snot! Now there's a winning combination! Other people may have difficulty eliminating through any channel and experience a whole range of symptoms related to that. But that's a whole other story.
So how do you make sure that your body is able to eliminate toxins?
(What I am referring to as toxins is just anything that your body needs to get rid of to keep things in balance) The first thing to look at is your bowel function. Problems in your bowels may be showing up on your face as acne, spots, clogged pores, dryness or excessive oiliness. Problems in your bowels can be down to a number of factors such as a deficiency in the bacteria required for good digestion but the first thing to look at is hydration.
Hydration, or rather the lack of it, can have a very detrimental effect on the skin. There are two specific reasons for this. Here's the first one. What you eat and drink passes through your digestive tract. When it enters the colon (also known as the large intestine) it is in liquid form. As is passes through the colon, water is absorbed through the colon wall. This causes the liquid to become drier and thicker and so the stools are formed.
The stools should be the right consistency to pass through the colon and leave the body comfortably. It's largely through the colon that the body receives its hydration. This is why people become dehydrated very quickly if they have a gastric bug with persistent diarrhoea, when nothing is staying in the colon long enough for water to be absorbed.
So what happens if you're under-hydrated?
Well, if you're under-hydrated more water will be drawn through the wall of the colon and the stools will become dry and hard and difficult to pass. The stools get stuck and stay in the colon for longer than they should and as the bowel is just a big long tube it's a bit like blocking a pipe. Whatever comes in to it next will get stuck too. And the toxins that should be leaving the body are absorbed through the wall of the colon.
From there they make their way in to the blood stream and back through the liver and the kidneys. In a sense creating a grid-lock which will cause your body to try and find another way to clear the toxins out. And this is where your skin comes in. There are lots of symptoms that indicate that the blood isn't being cleansed sufficiently. Problem skin is one such symptom.
In short, your body is always trying to do the best it can with what you give it to work with. If you don't give it enough water to cleanse and there's grid-lock in your bowel your body will find another way to eliminate toxins. The skin is an organ of elimination. So if you want clear skin? Get a clear bowel.
Drink plenty of water to keep your stools soft and moving easily. And try to avoid foods that can clog the bowel, such as wheat-based products like bread and pasta, and foods that are high in sugar. Aim for a diet rich in the water holding fibre found in fruits and vegetables. Foods that are high in fibre but lacking in water can have a drying effect so soak seeds, nuts, dried fruits and muesli well before eating them. Avoid diuretic drinks such as tea and coffee as they have such a drying effect and obviously keep alcohol to a minimum
Drinking water is one of the most important things you can do to help get rid of spots and keep your skin clear.
Water keeps things moving. It allows your body to cleanse and it keeps your skin hydrated. It's an odd fact that skin can be dry and oily at the same time and this is the second reason why a lack of hydration can cause problem skin. If you don't keep your body well hydrated your skin can become dry and start over-producing oil in an effort to keep the skin supple.
Often our tendency is to try to get rid of the oil using harsh cleansers but this only makes the situation worse as the skin goes in to over-drive producing more and more oil. The oil sits in the surface, blocks the pores and creates a breeding ground for spots and infections.
So the first thing to do to get rid of spots is to be consistent with the amount of water that you drink. And it does need to be just water. Water that comes in the form of tea, coffee, fizzy drinks and fruit juice doesn't count! (I know you'll find reports that claim that tea is as hydrating as water but I'd bet one of my kidneys that the research behind it was funded by a tea company)
Be sure you keep yourself well hydrated throughout each day, from morning to night. A good couple of litres should do it. If you're working in an air-conditioned environment or are doing a lot of exercise you may need more. Don't go overboard though and drink an excessive amount. Too much water isn't a great idea either as it can be difficult for your kidneys to handle and cause your body to flush out necessary minerals.
So the first thing to look at if you want to get rid of acne is your hydration. Closely followed by your digestion. As I mentioned earlier the antibiotics that are given to clear acne can, in a roundabout way, contribute to it. Or, in fact, any antibiotics that you may have had for any reason. You may have been given antibiotics in childhood that are having an impact on your digestion in adulthood.
We need to have the right balance of good and 'bad' bacteria in our bowel. Antibiotics kill off some of the good bacteria and this allows the 'bad' bacteria, or yeast, to grow. Once that happens, unless addressed, the imbalance can last indefinitely. Low levels of good bacteria can lead to poor digestion. If what's passing through your digestive system isn't being digested properly it can clog the bowel. And, as you know, a clogged bowel can lead to clogged skin.
It might be helpful at this point to point you in the direction of my article on bloating which explains the benefits of chewing as inhaling food is not great for digestion either and not the best way to a clear complexion.
Before I say any more about the causes of spots and acne I'd like just to say a bit about the importance of keeping skin clean. Although acne is generally caused by some sort of internal imbalance it can be made a whole lot worse if your skin is trying to support another life force in the form of bacteria that we can easily pick up just going about our normal lives.
One of the first things to be aware of is that every time you touch your face you are at risk of spreading infection. When I was a student and suffering from acne the spots were always on the right hand side of my chin. I realised that I would sit in lectures with my right hand supporting my head. Any grubbiness on my hand was being transferred to my face so I made a conscious decision to keep my hands away from my face and to cleanse my face when I came home each evening rather than waiting till bedtime.
If you live in a city, as I do, there's just a general griminess in the air that you end up wearing on your skin. And if they're not clean, hair, hats, scarves, phones and hands can all contribute to spots and acne.
Over the years of working with clients who were suffering from acne I began to notice a pattern emerging. Men and women would tell me that their skin had got worse (or the acne had first appeared around their mouth and chin) when they started a relationship. At first I thought it must be down to a change of diet that can often happen when people get together.
Or if the women had gone on the pill that could have caused a change in hormones or a mineral imbalance that could cause acne. (More on that later) But then it occurred to me that kissing and sex could be responsible for an increase in bacteria on the skin ... a type of bacteria that wouldn't normally be there.
When you think about it, it makes sense. If you have spots around your chin passionate kissing and oral sex may be responsible. So, I know it's not very romantic but before drifting off into a post-coital sleep, if you get up to have a pee, give your face a quick cleanse at the same time.
Okay! Moving on! :)
So many of us, teenagers especially, spend a lot of time with our faces not too far from a screen. Most of the teenagers that I know watch TV on their computers whilst doing homework, chatting on Facebook and listening to music. I don't know the statistics but a great many people stare at a computer for a large part of their working day. You may be one of them.
Have you ever noticed how much dust a computer attracts? This is due to the electromagnetic charge. When you are sitting close to a computer you are affected by the electromagnetic charge and can, yourself, attract dust! Problems with blackheads and clogged pores can be the result. Also keyboards are generally pretty grubby places to be, so making sure that you wash your hands after using one can help. That, and keeping your hands away from your face will help keep your skin free from the bacteria that could cause spots.
This is Part 1 of this article. Part 2 to follow soon.
In Part 2 I'll recommend specific changes to diet that can help get rid of spots for good, supplements that will support the skin and a range of products that can help too.
Spots and acne, as I'm going to refer to them here, are a problem that can cause misery and frustration. Spots generally strike during puberty but can continue well in to adulthood. I know this from experience. Despite the fact that my mum told me my skin would clear up by the time I was eighteen, I had spots, every day, well in to my forties. Some people are lucky enough to go through their teenage years with clear skin or only the occasional spot but develop full-blown acne in later life.
If you're suffering with bad skin wouldn't it be great to know what might be causing the spots and how to get rid of them?
Here are some simple strategies to help you get rid of spots together with some insights in to why the common ways to treat spots and acne are often counter-productive.
If you want to know how to get rid of spots it's helpful to understand what causes spots in the first place. There can be many causes from diet, to vitamin and mineral deficiencies, to stress, to hygiene, to hormone imbalance. For some people it will be just one factor that causes the acne. For others it'll be a combination.
So what I would suggest is that you read through this article to get an overall picture of what causes spots and acne, think about which factors might relate to you and then .... experiment!
Try things out. Make some changes. And watch what happens!
And please send me your comments. It's always good to hear from people who have been reading my articles.
Most doctors will tell you that spots and acne are not affected by diet. They'll claim that it doesn't matter what you eat and that the way to treat breakouts is with topical lotions or antibiotics. I beg to differ! Big time! I had spots on my forehead and chin every day from puberty until .... well, until I changed my diet. Now? Maybe one spot every six months. And I always know why it's appeared. And how to get rid of it.
Many sufferers, if their problem with spots has been severe and persistent, will have been prescribed acne medication in the form of antibiotics. Treatment can go on for months and although this is usually effective in the short term, the acne often returns as soon as the medication ends. This is because the medication treats the symptoms, it doesn't get to the root cause.
It's a bit like a warning light flashing on the dashboard of your car. You take the fuse out. The light goes of. Problem solved? Of course not. There's still something wrong with the engine. Acne is a warning light; a sign that something is wrong internally. It's your body's best effort to deal with the problem. Getting rid of the acne without looking deeper isn't the solution. The problem that caused the acne in the first place will still be there.
It's far better to look at what might be out of balance, treat that and then view the improvement in the skin as a sign that you are moving towards better health.
There is something else to be aware of when it comes to treating acne with antibiotics. Antibiotics kill bacteria. This is clearly a good thing if you are wanting to get rid of a life-threatening bacterial infection and many of us may not be around today without them. However, the problem is that antibiotics don't discriminate between the 'bad' bacteria that causes infections and the 'good' bacteria that we need to support our digestion.
So, in short, if you treat acne with antibiotics you may get rid of the spots but end up with a digestive problem instead. This becomes even more important when you consider that acne is linked to poor digestion. I'll explain later in more detail exactly how acne can be linked to poor digestion but for now I'd just like you to hold that thought in your mind and ask yourself this - if your acne is linked to poor digestion surely it's a bad idea to treat your acne with something that makes your digestion poorer?
When clients come to see me for help with skin conditions I'm not so much concerned with what's going on on the surface as with what's happening at a deeper level within the body. I take the view that the acne problem is just an indication that something somewhere is out of balance; it's the warning light. Most often the problem is to do with the elimination of toxins. There is a process whereby toxins are moved through the body to be eliminated via the bowel and the bladder.
The skin is also an organ of elimination and so if the body is having difficulty eliminating through the bowel and bladder it may use the skin as a way to ease the strain.
When elimination is working well we tend to feel fine and our skin is clear. However if your lymphatic system is over-whelmed, your bowel isn't functioning particularly well or your liver and kidneys are struggling your body will find another way to get rid of the toxins. You skin is an obvious route out. Although for some people it's the upper respiratory system that's used and they'll get a lot of mucus.
Some people get both. Spots and snot! Now there's a winning combination! Other people may have difficulty eliminating through any channel and experience a whole range of symptoms related to that. But that's a whole other story.
So how do you make sure that your body is able to eliminate toxins?
(What I am referring to as toxins is just anything that your body needs to get rid of to keep things in balance) The first thing to look at is your bowel function. Problems in your bowels may be showing up on your face as acne, spots, clogged pores, dryness or excessive oiliness. Problems in your bowels can be down to a number of factors such as a deficiency in the bacteria required for good digestion but the first thing to look at is hydration.
Hydration, or rather the lack of it, can have a very detrimental effect on the skin. There are two specific reasons for this. Here's the first one. What you eat and drink passes through your digestive tract. When it enters the colon (also known as the large intestine) it is in liquid form. As is passes through the colon, water is absorbed through the colon wall. This causes the liquid to become drier and thicker and so the stools are formed.
The stools should be the right consistency to pass through the colon and leave the body comfortably. It's largely through the colon that the body receives its hydration. This is why people become dehydrated very quickly if they have a gastric bug with persistent diarrhoea, when nothing is staying in the colon long enough for water to be absorbed.
So what happens if you're under-hydrated?
Well, if you're under-hydrated more water will be drawn through the wall of the colon and the stools will become dry and hard and difficult to pass. The stools get stuck and stay in the colon for longer than they should and as the bowel is just a big long tube it's a bit like blocking a pipe. Whatever comes in to it next will get stuck too. And the toxins that should be leaving the body are absorbed through the wall of the colon.
From there they make their way in to the blood stream and back through the liver and the kidneys. In a sense creating a grid-lock which will cause your body to try and find another way to clear the toxins out. And this is where your skin comes in. There are lots of symptoms that indicate that the blood isn't being cleansed sufficiently. Problem skin is one such symptom.
In short, your body is always trying to do the best it can with what you give it to work with. If you don't give it enough water to cleanse and there's grid-lock in your bowel your body will find another way to eliminate toxins. The skin is an organ of elimination. So if you want clear skin? Get a clear bowel.
Drink plenty of water to keep your stools soft and moving easily. And try to avoid foods that can clog the bowel, such as wheat-based products like bread and pasta, and foods that are high in sugar. Aim for a diet rich in the water holding fibre found in fruits and vegetables. Foods that are high in fibre but lacking in water can have a drying effect so soak seeds, nuts, dried fruits and muesli well before eating them. Avoid diuretic drinks such as tea and coffee as they have such a drying effect and obviously keep alcohol to a minimum
Drinking water is one of the most important things you can do to help get rid of spots and keep your skin clear.
Water keeps things moving. It allows your body to cleanse and it keeps your skin hydrated. It's an odd fact that skin can be dry and oily at the same time and this is the second reason why a lack of hydration can cause problem skin. If you don't keep your body well hydrated your skin can become dry and start over-producing oil in an effort to keep the skin supple.
Often our tendency is to try to get rid of the oil using harsh cleansers but this only makes the situation worse as the skin goes in to over-drive producing more and more oil. The oil sits in the surface, blocks the pores and creates a breeding ground for spots and infections.
So the first thing to do to get rid of spots is to be consistent with the amount of water that you drink. And it does need to be just water. Water that comes in the form of tea, coffee, fizzy drinks and fruit juice doesn't count! (I know you'll find reports that claim that tea is as hydrating as water but I'd bet one of my kidneys that the research behind it was funded by a tea company)
Be sure you keep yourself well hydrated throughout each day, from morning to night. A good couple of litres should do it. If you're working in an air-conditioned environment or are doing a lot of exercise you may need more. Don't go overboard though and drink an excessive amount. Too much water isn't a great idea either as it can be difficult for your kidneys to handle and cause your body to flush out necessary minerals.
So the first thing to look at if you want to get rid of acne is your hydration. Closely followed by your digestion. As I mentioned earlier the antibiotics that are given to clear acne can, in a roundabout way, contribute to it. Or, in fact, any antibiotics that you may have had for any reason. You may have been given antibiotics in childhood that are having an impact on your digestion in adulthood.
We need to have the right balance of good and 'bad' bacteria in our bowel. Antibiotics kill off some of the good bacteria and this allows the 'bad' bacteria, or yeast, to grow. Once that happens, unless addressed, the imbalance can last indefinitely. Low levels of good bacteria can lead to poor digestion. If what's passing through your digestive system isn't being digested properly it can clog the bowel. And, as you know, a clogged bowel can lead to clogged skin.
It might be helpful at this point to point you in the direction of my article on bloating which explains the benefits of chewing as inhaling food is not great for digestion either and not the best way to a clear complexion.
Before I say any more about the causes of spots and acne I'd like just to say a bit about the importance of keeping skin clean. Although acne is generally caused by some sort of internal imbalance it can be made a whole lot worse if your skin is trying to support another life force in the form of bacteria that we can easily pick up just going about our normal lives.
One of the first things to be aware of is that every time you touch your face you are at risk of spreading infection. When I was a student and suffering from acne the spots were always on the right hand side of my chin. I realised that I would sit in lectures with my right hand supporting my head. Any grubbiness on my hand was being transferred to my face so I made a conscious decision to keep my hands away from my face and to cleanse my face when I came home each evening rather than waiting till bedtime.
If you live in a city, as I do, there's just a general griminess in the air that you end up wearing on your skin. And if they're not clean, hair, hats, scarves, phones and hands can all contribute to spots and acne.
Over the years of working with clients who were suffering from acne I began to notice a pattern emerging. Men and women would tell me that their skin had got worse (or the acne had first appeared around their mouth and chin) when they started a relationship. At first I thought it must be down to a change of diet that can often happen when people get together.
Or if the women had gone on the pill that could have caused a change in hormones or a mineral imbalance that could cause acne. (More on that later) But then it occurred to me that kissing and sex could be responsible for an increase in bacteria on the skin ... a type of bacteria that wouldn't normally be there.
When you think about it, it makes sense. If you have spots around your chin passionate kissing and oral sex may be responsible. So, I know it's not very romantic but before drifting off into a post-coital sleep, if you get up to have a pee, give your face a quick cleanse at the same time.
Okay! Moving on! :)
So many of us, teenagers especially, spend a lot of time with our faces not too far from a screen. Most of the teenagers that I know watch TV on their computers whilst doing homework, chatting on Facebook and listening to music. I don't know the statistics but a great many people stare at a computer for a large part of their working day. You may be one of them.
Have you ever noticed how much dust a computer attracts? This is due to the electromagnetic charge. When you are sitting close to a computer you are affected by the electromagnetic charge and can, yourself, attract dust! Problems with blackheads and clogged pores can be the result. Also keyboards are generally pretty grubby places to be, so making sure that you wash your hands after using one can help. That, and keeping your hands away from your face will help keep your skin free from the bacteria that could cause spots.
This is Part 1 of this article. Part 2 to follow soon.
In Part 2 I'll recommend specific changes to diet that can help get rid of spots for good, supplements that will support the skin and a range of products that can help too.
