Caring for Your Skin from the Inside Out: Top 3 Tips

When you think about it, our skin works very hard for us! This complex organ is made up of skin, nails, hair, glands, and nerves – and they all work together to protect us from the outside world through heat regulation, secretion, excretion, sensation, and absorption. That’s a lot of work for our body – especially if we also struggle with allergies, asthma, and other common immunological conditions!

One method Dr. Buddiga and his team uses to take a deeper look at your skin and identify its specific needs is the SkinImmune™ skin health system. From diagnosis to treatment and enhancement, you’ll receive a bigger-picture look at your skin’s underlying issues and how to solve them. But before you head in to see us, it is important to understand how our skin protects us so we can do our best to support it on the day-to-day. Here’s a breakdown of the primary functions of our body’s first line of defense – and our top tips for protecting it right back.

• Your Body’s Firewall: How Our Skin Protects Us

  The skin is our protective barrier against physical injury and foreign or hazardous substances. Each layer of the skin contains important elements that serve various purposes in protecting us. For example, our outermost layer protects us from bacterial infections and the sebum from our oil glands prevents our skin from drying and cracking.

• Not Too Hot, Not Too Cold: All About Heat Regulation

  The body’s optimal temperature is 98.6°F and throughout the day the body and skin use various mechanisms to ensure we maintain that temperature. When it’s hot, the skin perspires and through evaporation of the moisture, the body is able to cool itself down. When it’s cold, the arrector pili muscles under the skin are stimulated which helps insulate the air—that’s why we get goosebumps when we’re chilly!

• Don’t Sweat It…Or Do: Two Kinds of Secretion

  The sweat glands’ main job is to secrete waste and they are divided into two types: apocrine glands and eccrine glands. Apocrine sweat glands secrete water, salts, and cellular waste, and eccrine sweat glands primarily secrete water, some salts, and urea. They’re influenced by the sympathetic nervous system which helps maintain the body’s homeostasis.

• See Ya, Sebum: Excretion and Hormones

  It sounds similar to secretion, but this is the process by which the oil glands get rid of sebum which helps maintain healthy skin. They’re influenced by the endocrine system which controls the body’s hormones; these glands are located on the scalp, cheeks, and your face’s T-zone.

• It’s Just a Feeling: What Is Sensation

  This function allows us to feel things like heat, cold, pressure, and pain. The receptors that send us pain signals are close to the surface of the skin, heat and cold are in the middle, and pressure receptors are located the deepest which means they require more stimulation to fire up.

• A Dose of Vitamin C: Absorption’s Role in Skin Care

  The last function of the skin is absorption. And this can mean two things: absorbing oily substances like creams and lotions—which is why it’s so crucial to check the ingredients—as well as the sun’s UV radiation. While we do need Vitamin D, it’s important to control how much we are exposed to the sun. If the skin is damaged, it can’t perform all its essential duties to keep us safe.

See? The skin is amazing. All of these processes happen each day without us even realizing it. While the skin is a complex organ, that doesn’t mean taking care of it from the inside out has to be. With a few simple tips, you can achieve healthy, glowing skin.

Tip #1: Get Your Zzzzs

Before you think about buying new skin care products or scheduling procedures and treatments, start with one lifestyle change to help improve the look and feel of your skin: ensure you’re getting adequate sleep. When we doze off, the body gets to work repairing itself and recovering while we sleep. The sweet spot is between 7 and 9 hours of quality sleep to ensure your skin is getting the benefits of rest.

• 1. A full night could result in fewer wrinkles. In addition to all the things skin does for us, it also makes new collagen overnight, which helps prevent sagging. More collagen means the skin is fuller and less likely to wrinkle.
• 2. More sleep could help with a glowy appearance. Lack of sleep causes a decrease in blood flow in the skin around the face, which causes skin to appear dull.
• 3. A good night also prevents puffy eyes and dark circles on the very delicate skin under the eyes. That is one of the first things we notice when we toss and turn and can be improved just by clocking eight hours.

Tip #2 Choose Trusted Products

Not all skin care products are created equal. With so many cleansers, exfoliators, toners, moisturizers, masks, and more available to us, it can be extremely daunting to choose which ones are right for you—and not for you. One brand Dr. Buddiga trusts, uses, and recommends to his patients is ZO® Skin Health. Their innovative and science-based approach to developing products and solutions brings a new perspective to traditional skincare. From correcting sun damage and pigmentation to preventing and protecting against future damage, ZO® is a trusted partner in any skin health journey. In addition to finding the right products, it is also important to maintain a skin care routine to reap the long-term benefits of the products you are using.

Tip #3 Consult A Dermatologist

You might think that seeing a dermatologist means simply treating what you see on the outside, but Dr. Buddiga takes a comprehensive and customized approach to skin care. In order to address skin issues, he 1) conducts thorough skin testing to rule out allergies and environmental irritants, and 2) implements his revolutionary SkinImmune™ skin health system, which combines cutting-edge diagnostic tools with state-of-the-art treatments to improve skin. Dr. Buddiga begins with gathering the full picture of the patient’s health before diagnosing and treating skin conditions. Working from the inside out ensures each patient’s care is unique and improves results.

If you are looking to improve or enhance your skin, now is a great time to schedule a consultation with Dr. Buddiga. He actively pursues the latest evidence-based technologies and treatments to ensure he can bring the best and most up-to-date care.

Ready to set up your consultation? Fill out the form right here to get started: https://www.buddiga.com/contact/