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Can Stress Change Your Skin Color?

Every one of us goes through a period of stress at some point in our life. Stress can negatively impact our bodies in several ways and when stress is left untreated, it can result in anxiety, depression, and other health issues. However, are you aware that stress can also affect our skin health or the color of the skin? How about taking a read further and exploring the fact that stress can change your skin color?

Can Stress Change Your Skin Color?

Can Stress Change Your Skin Color?

Stress can directly or indirectly change your skin color. Though massive discolorations of skin are rare due to stress, however, some sort of changes in skin color can be experienced if you are going through stress issues.

Skin Redness Due To Stress

When you are extremely stressed out or going through anxiety, it can trigger an inflammatory response that might aggravate your skin and increase the redness of the skin. It is also known that stress can trigger symptoms of rosacea.

There are trusted sources that show that stress can aggravate or trigger skin issues like eczema, and psoriasis and result in redness and rashes in the skin.(1)

Apart from this, stress is also known to have the potential to reduce the function of your immune system, which can ultimately cause an imbalance of the good bacteria in the gut and result in skin redness or rashes.

Lighter Skin Tone Due To Stress

Chronic stress can also cause anxiety and anxiety can make your skin look lighter. It is like anxiety can result in pale-looking skin. This happens because blood rushes away from the skin towards your heart when there is an anxiety attack, and this, in turn, results in the body losing its natural pigmentation.

Uneven Skin Tone Due To Stress

One more way stress can change your skin color is that it can result in uneven skin tone. Research has shown that stress that is caused due to sleep deprivation can increase signs of aging and also result in uneven pigmentation.(2) This also contributes to dark circles and bags under your eyes.

Darker Skin Due To Stress

It is also believed that skin can cause darker skin color. This might happen because patients who are under stress might neglect their skin, scratching, or rubbing their skin. Rubbing of skin results in skin inflammation and this might activate all types of cells, which include melanocytes, and this would make the skin darker.

Yellowing of Skin Due To Stress

Stress and anxiety can result in dysfunctioning of the liver, which might lead to jaundice or a condition of yellowing of the skin. However, this might be minor.

Take Away

Stress cannot be avoided. However, managing stress is very much possible. So, it is essential to minimize the effects of stress through various relaxation techniques, medications, and lifestyle changes and avoid the changes in the color of your skin that result due to stress.

References:

Team PainAssist
Team PainAssist
Written, Edited or Reviewed By: Team PainAssist, Pain Assist Inc. This article does not provide medical advice. See disclaimer
Last Modified On:September 8, 2022

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