The Role of Hormones in Skin Aging
Our skin goes through a lot. Every day it deals with pollution, sun exposure, and harsh weather, with genetics, lifestyle habits, and hormone imbalances all playing a role in how our skin ages. Everyone’s skin ages differently, depending on these factors. While we can’t control everything, our hormones are one part of skin aging we can take active steps to improve.
Understanding how hormones impact your skin’s health and the aging process makes it easier to curate a wellness routine that works for you. While you should be using products like peptide serums and gels for face rejuvenation, don’t overlook the importance of maintaining your hormone balance with the right lifestyle choices.
Which Hormones Affect Skin Health
Hormones act as chemical messengers, regulating bodily function, and overall skin health. Cortisol, growth hormone, estrogen, testosterone, and insulin are among the most important hormones in the skin’s aging process. We’ll cover these in more detail below, but other hormones, including thyroid hormones and progesterone, also play a role.
Estrogen: The Skin’s Best Friend
Estrogen acts like a glass of water for your skin, providing hydration and promoting collagen and elastin production. As women go through menopause, their estrogen naturally declines, resulting in a loss of collagen and skin elasticity. This time is when you’ll notice rapid aging, including a loss of firmness, wrinkles, dryness, and increased sensitivity.
Testosterone: Not Just a Male Hormone
There’s a common misconception that testosterone is just a male hormone. Instead, testosterone contributes to your skin’s thickness, preventing wrinkles, and regulating oil production. As your testosterone declines, it results in drier skin with reduced oil production that causes flakiness as the skin becomes thinner.
Cortisol: The Stress Hormone
Cortisol is the hormone everyone is talking about on social media. This hormone is released when your body undergoes stress, affecting your metabolism and immune response. High cortisol levels break down collagen, accelerating the skin’s aging process by causing wrinkles and sagging. This chronic inflammation causes thinner, more fragile skin that can result in acne, eczema, and rosacea.
Growth Hormone: The Repair Mechanism
Our skin goes through a lot every day. Our growth hormones facilitate our skin’s cellular turnover, a crucial part of keeping our skin healthy. It supports your skin’s structure and collagen production for a smooth texture and firmer facial muscles.
As our growth hormone production slows, our skin’s recovery time increases. Lower skin repair and regeneration leave our skin more prone to damage as it becomes thinner.
Insulin: Beyond Blood Sugar
When most of us hear the word ‘insulin’, our mind goes to health conditions like diabetes – but we should all be thinking about our insulin levels. Insulin regulates our blood sugar, contributing to our overall skin health. If your body develops insulin resistance, it results in more sugar in your blood.
You’ll start to notice this in your facial muscles as glycation, when sugar binds to collagen, creates stiffness and causes visible wrinkles. Inflammation is also closely associated with insulin resistance, manifesting in skin conditions like acne and rosacea.
Understanding the Skin Aging Process
The first step to tackling premature aging is to use products like peptide serums, but it’s also important to understand the skin’s aging process and the influence of hormonal changes. There’s more than just your skincare routine to consider.
You can help maintain your hormonal balance and slow the skin’s aging process, by managing your stress, keeping a healthy diet, and staying on top of your overall health. The skin’s aging process is natural, but your lifestyle choices and non-invasive treatments can keep your skin looking and feeling healthier for longer.
Incorporating a microcurrent device into your skincare routine will not only help to increase your collagen production, but it will also help to make your skin look more radiant. Not to mention it will help you feel better about how your skin looks. Regular usage of a microcurrent routine will not only give you a lifted look, but the increase of ATP (cell energy) brightens the skin. Self-care is important to help you with your stress and microcurrent is a very relaxing treatment. Our hands free conductive masks are a great addition when you just want to sit and relax, they help to soften those fine lines and wrinkles on the surface of your skin.
