Every so often someone asks me this question.
Why my friends who eat all the junk they want have perfect skin?
First, yeah, I understand how you feel. It seems unfair that you have to eat healthy and still suffer from acne when your friends can eat what they want and never suffer over it.
So doesn’t this prove that diet and healthy living doesn’t have anything to do with acne?
No. Not everyone who smokes gets lung cancer, but it would be foolish to point to those people and say that smoking doesn’t cause lung cancer.
Each of us is a unique mix of genetics and environmental influences. So it’s only normal that our bodies react differently to unhealthy influences.
The fact is that not everyone is prone to getting acne. Just like some people don’t get lung cancer no matter how much they smoke. Or some people don’t get diabetes no matter how much sugar they eat.
Nobody really knows how acne develops. We know that certain hormones (such as insulin, insulin-like growth factor 1 and male sex hormones) are involved. If you are prone to getting acne the levels of these hormones often correlate with the severity of acne. On the other hand people with and without acne have similar levels of these hormones. So it comes down to how your body reacts to these hormones.
Acne is also an emotional condition
Then there are the emotional causes. Like all skin conditions acne has a significant emotional component. It’s highly reactive to stress and negative emotions.
I notice that people with acne often have a victim mentality. They almost believe that they have been cursed, and that it’s unfair that they have to bear this burden.
On the surface this sounds reasonable. After all, they have acne despite their best efforts to clear it. But you have to keep in mind that it’s very likely that this victim mentality formed before you got acne. Often these things are rooted in painful childhood experiences. Experiences that happened before you even knew what acne is.
This victim mentality is a sign of less than ideal self-image. Perhaps your friends who don’t get acne are more comfortable in their skin and have a more empowering self-image.
And do you know the holiday clear skin effect (just a term I made up)? Stories of people getting clear during holidays pop up regularly at acne forums. The person got clear while on holidays despite eating nothing but junk and drinking every night. Hardly a recipe for a healthy life, but still they got clear. And when they got back home and to healthy diet, they started breaking out again.
It just goes to show that there’s a lot more to clear skin than just diet.
Since you got it, make the best of acne
Look, the fact is that you have acne. So might just make the best out of it – right?
Instead of looking at acne as a curse of an unfair burden, try to see it positively. Here’s one way to do it. Consider acne as an early warning signal. It warns you that there’s something wrong in your body, and that you need to take action to correct the situation.
Would you rather deal with acne now or 30 years later get surprised when doctor tells you that the routine medical checkup revealed an advanced form of cancer?
It’s a rhetorical question because you don’t have a choice in the matter. But it shows that acne has a positive side to it also. It gives you an early warning; something that your friends who have clear skin don’t get. Because the fact is that whether you get acne or no we all have to pay for our ‘health sins’. Nobody can abuse their bodies and get away with it.
Acne might also be your best chance to create a truly fantastic life. It forces you to change your physical health. And it forces you to confront your fears and limitations. If you take the opportunity to do that, you can create the life you’ve always dreamed of.
And that’s not too shabby for a few pimples, eh?
Did you like this? Then you will also love these products:
Clear for Life: Lifestyle for Health, Happiness and Clear Skin
Clear for Life Meditations: Melt Away the Stress of Acne and Finally Be Free
Emotional Healing for Clear Skin: Simple system for healing the emotional pain acne causes