(By Iquo Ukoh)
You notice that bump on your face a night before that planned hang-out with friends. Annoying, isn’t it? Now your whole focus is suddenly concentrated on this bump. You practically have to control your hands stroking this little bump. Sometimes it’s not one or two but many covering a reasonable surface of your skin. Girls sometimes experience the added embarrassment when their skin announces to the whole world that their period is on the way. Oily skin and breakout is a common feature of teenage years.
Stress of reading in school, sleepless nights, dirty pillow cases and poor eating habits are some of the causes of breakouts. Pimples and acne do fade out as you get past teenage years but whilst they last, here are a few things to change in your diet and habit to help reduce the look of Agama lizard skin.
Let’s focus for now on your diet as one way of remedying the situation or at least reducing the aggressive attack.
1. Water
Water is a vital nutrient that helps the body to function optimally. You need frequent disposal of wastes from the system .Water helps to flush out toxins from the body including the ones that produce those bumps. Water also helps to hydrate the skin and improve your skin texture and appearance. A bottle of water in your school bag is quite cool to carry to school. You can hydrate on the go. It’s healthier to replace much of the sugar loaded drinks with water.
2 . Eat healthy and Exercise regularly
The look and texture of your skin is a reflection of how healthy you are. It shows the result of what you eat. This is truly the expression of garbage in – garbage out, or should we say garbage on the outside. When you eat healthy and exercise regularly, it will show up on your skin. Including lots of vegetables and fruits in your meal is the way to go. Good oils like groundnut oil, soya oil and olive oil are the best choice. Avoid those fats that harden at room temperature or foods containing these type of fat. Trim off fat from your meats as a habit. It’s a good idea to include an apple or banana in your school bag to use as snacks between meals.
Also, make sure you minimise pastry snacks, fries and such fast foods in your daily food intake.
Exercise has a way of pumping blood to the skin. When the skin is well fed with nutrients, it glows. If you are driven to and from school, you may choose to get off the car some kilometres to your destination and walk .
3. Sleep
The body needs to rest after a hard day’s work. Are you getting enough sleep? Night calls are cheap but will you want to do this on a daily basis and suffer the consequence of breakouts? Sleep relaxes the system and puts less stress on the body during the day and therefore reduces the probability of breaking out . Clean your face before retiring for the night. Be sure to keep your pillow case clean. It is recommended to change pillow cases every 2 days.
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