Why December Is The Most Challenging Month For Your Skin

Coming from a holistic approach of rejuvenating and restoring skin health, I wanted to reach out to all of my valued clients and give you some suggestions for enjoying December in good cheer as well as in good health. December truly is the month where I hear more about struggles with skin health than any other time of the year.

This is because we overload our body with a brigade of inflammatory inducing activities which ultimately manifest themselves in our skin.

Maybe you don't associate the holidays with a lack of sleep, but there are many factors that can make December the most sleepless time of the year. First and foremost is the increase in social functions and increase in alcohol consumption. Alcohol has a major impact on sleep. In addition, holiday stress from financial obligations and juggling work with a packed social calendar can keep us up longer.

A lack of sleep not only makes us tired, but also makes our skin look tired.

With repeated sleep-less nights, and a chronic stress overload, it is no wonder that we are experiencing an insufficient energy state. Many of us respond to this with “energy drinks”, caffeine, and glucose-rich foods to boost our energy and allow us to continue with our daily obligations. The problem with these “temporary energy stimulators” is that they come with a cost and ultimately leave you with less energy and an inability to sleep.

Indulging in too many holiday foods will also have other unpleasant affects on your skin. Unfortunately one of the biggest culprits is “eggnog”. The combination of sugar, whole milk or cream and alcohol is terrible for your skin, so consume this in moderation. Additionally any dairy can be an exacerbating factor when it comes to acne because of the elevated level of hormones in milk. Excess sugar (such as found in those beloved holiday cookies) is another culprit that can send us over our “acne-threshold”.

The other affect of too much sugar on our skin is the production of Advanced Glycation Endproducts (AGE). This is a process that happens when sugar attaches to proteins and fats in our bodies and essentially “denatures” them. For our skin, when sugar attaches to collagen, we are literally depleting ourselves of active collagen . Since collagen is the support structure for our skin, collagen depletion results in wrinkling, sagging and overall thinning of the skin. So definitely enjoy a few holiday spreads, but just be aware of balancing your overall nutrition with more healthy eating days.

For any of my readers that have come to my clinic you know that one of the first questions I ask you is “Do you wear sunscreen?”. The answer I get most often is “Yes when I go to the beach”. The truth of the matter is that some of the most severe cases of sun damage occur in the winter months. The combination not wearing sunscreen during the winter and the reflection of UV from the snow creates havoc for our skin health.

Fact: the percentage reflection of UV from water is less than ten percent. The percentage reflection of UV from snow is almost ninety percent!

Your skin needs photo-protection every day and regardless of what level SPF you apply, your sunscreen needs to be reapplied for every two hours of UV exposure. Also keep in mind that approximately ninety five percent of all UV rays are called UVA (aging) rays and can penetrate through glass! That means when you are driving or even just sitting close to a window your skin is exposed to damaging UV rays.

I recommend a mineral over a chemical sunscreen, as I believe we do more damage to our DNA with chemical filters than we actually protect ourselves from UV damage.

Mineral sunscreens contain either zinc oxide, titanium oxide or a combination of both. Between the increase in stress, lack of sleep, alcohol consumption, holiday foods and often-forgotten sun protection you can now see why I consider December the hardest month for our skin health. Try these suggestions to swing the pendulum in the direction of better skin health…

Get into a routine of applying sunscreen to exposed parts of your body every day. Do this year round and don't forget areas such as ears, neck and tops of hands. Enjoy holiday social functions that this time of the year brings, but space them out so that your body has time to recover from lost sleep, perhaps some excess alcohol and indulgence in some delicious (but not so healthy) foods.

Load up on antioxidants in both your skin care and your nutrition. Antioxidants are substances that are able to “neutralize” free radicals so that they cannot damage our body. In a healthy body we have sufficient antioxidants to off-set the amount of free radicals produced. The problem happens when our free radical production increases beyond our body’s supply of antioxidants, and this puts our body into a state of “oxidative stress”. During oxidative stress, free radicals are able to “run wild” in our body and damage DNA, cell membranes and enzymes.

Sources of antioxidant rich foods and beverages include…

Green tea

Berries

Grapes

Mangoes

Carrots

Spinach

Kale

Pecans

Dark chocolate

Beets