Stress - it’s something we all deal with, but did you know it can have a direct impact on your skin? If you’ve ever noticed your eczema flaring up after a particularly tense day, you’re not alone.
Stress doesn’t just affect your mind; it triggers physical reactions in your body that can make dry, itchy skin feel worse. But understanding this connection is the first step toward breaking the cycle.
The link between stress and eczema
In the United Kingdom's National Eczema Society's survey, Eczema Unmasked, 57% of women and 41% of men said stress was the single biggest trigger of their eczema flare-ups.
Gosh don't you love a catch 22 situation! You may have felt your blood pressure rise under the strain of a stressful situation and not long afterwards, noticed that your eczema is flaring up. Just what you need when you're under pressure!
Here's how it works.
Stressful situations or emotions cause our bodies to produce cortisol, known as the stress hormone. It supports the fight or flight response and can even give us superhuman strength in life-or-death situations! But when the cause of stress is a teething baby, rush hour traffic, or a tax return, it's not as useful.
When you are stressed for a short time, cortisol limits inflammation and regulates your immune system. But if you're in a continued state of high stress, your body can 'get used to' the cortisol levels and this can suppress your immune system and increase inflammation in your body - including your skin.
Did you know: Ironically, one of the causes of high cortisol levels is taking high doses of corticosteroid medications, like prednisone, prednisolone or dexamethasone.
If your skin is already dealing with eczema, it has less resistance and also becomes more inflamed. As well as contributing to inflammation, stress hampers your skin’s natural ability to repair. And the catch is that when your eczema gets worse, you may get more stressed about that.
Breaking the Stress-Eczema cycle
In the busy and cluttered modern world, it's easy to get used to living with stress, and often that stress is provoked by things that aren't actually life or death - a demanding boss, a personal attack on social media, or even the daily demands of answering emails, text messages, cooking dinner, caring for children, running to the supermarket and standing in queues, budgeting and trying to find time to get in a workout.
- Are you living in a semi-permanent state of fight or flight?
- Is there anything you can take off your to-do list? What can wait?
- Can you mentally de-escalate the things that are not a question of survival?
- Can you de-clutter?
- Is there a way to make time to reconnect with nature - and yourself?
- What is something truly lovely you can do for yourself?
- Who can you ask for support?
- Do you need mental health assistance or counselling to rebalance your body and mind?
If you think you are living in a constant state of stress rather than just going through a stressful event, it's worth taking the time to get help, and change this.
If your situation is seriously stressful, arohamai.
Life isn't always smooth sailing and when things are seriously wrong, it can be very hard. We hope you can see a way to ask for help. If you need to, please reach out to get free counselling, or find the support that suits your situation.
Not sure where to start?
- You can call or text 1737 or use a helpline like Lifeline (0800 543 354) or Healthline (0800 611 116).
- Ask whānau and friends for support. Everyone needs a helping hand sometimes.
Stress support for children
As a caregiver you can help by modelling stress management techniques and talking with your child about their feelings, and helping model a rich emotional vocabulary for them so they can accurately express themselves outside of happy, sad and angry, and help you to help them feel seen and heard.
If you feel your child needs more support, here are some resources for children coping with anxiety or worries.
- Healthify has some great interactive resources
- Kid's Health also has a page of information here
- Kids can also call or text 1737 to talk to a trained counsellor
- Youthline Has free numbers 0800 376 633 or text 234 and email talk@youthline.co.nz or online chat at youthline.co.nz
- What’s up? Is for 5 to 18 year olds with 0800 942 8787 for counselling Monday to Friday 1 – 10pm and weekends, 3-10pm. Online chat is available 7-10pm daily and can be accessed at whatsup.co.nz
Wishing you well, inside and out.
Knowing that stress is a cause of eczema may not be particularly useful if you're in a stressful situation, but hopefully this information validates your feeling that your eczema gets worse when you're under pressure and stressed, and gives you hope that working on your stress is likely to lessen your eczema flare ups, and no doubt caring for your eczema will lower your stress levels.
Here's to reversing the direction of the cycle.
Best wishes from our whānau to yours,
Georgina & Matt.
