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Ep 341 – The Rogue Pharmacist: Psychodermatology
00:19:44
Psychodermatology bridges psychology and skin health. In this episode of The Rogue Pharmacist, we explore how emotional stress manifests on the skin—and why estheticians should understand this powerful mind-skin connection. Associated Skin Care...
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- [00:00]
Benjamin Knife Fuchs
Calling all forward thinking estheticians, it's time to redefine the art of skin care and embrace a revolutionary approach that begins with your clients. Skin Cell Health. I'm pharmacist Benjamin Knife Fuchs welcoming you to Truth Treatment Systems where beauty begins. At the cell, we believe you're not just a beauty professional, you are a healthcare professional. You want to make a positive difference and you want to make a good living and we will help you do both. We're here to support your out of the box thinking and empower you to question traditional products, outdated formulations and old school ingredients. Imagine a world where solutions to the skin's enigmatic conditions lie just beyond the horizon. At Truth, we're not just a skincare brand. We're a movement that encourages you to explore better solutions and find that aha moment that changes the game. You are an artist and a healer of the skin and we're here to provide the canvas and the tools for you to create tailored protocols leaving generic ones in the past. Sign up now@TruthTreatmentsPro.com and receive two complimentary mineral rich electrolyte sheet masks. That's Truth TreatmentsPro.com where healthy skin is beautiful skin.
- [01:12]
Maggie Stasik
Hello and welcome to ASCP and the Rogue Pharmacist with Benjamin Nightfuchs. In each episode, we'll explore how internal and external factors can impact the skin. Maggie I'm Maggie Stasik, ASCP's program director. And joining me is Ben Fuchs, skincare formulator and pharmacist. Hey Ben.
- [01:28]
Ben Fuchs
Hello, Maggie.
- [01:29]
Maggie Stasik
Psychodermatology is a fascinating and growing topic in esthetics. Most estheticians are familiar with the mind skin connection, but they may not know the term or just how deep that connection really goes. So Ben, can you explain what psychodermatology is and how stress can actually show up on the skin?
- [01:49]
Ben Fuchs
Yes, absolutely. In fact, stress shows up on the body in general, although interestingly, a little bit of stress is a good thing. And that's why we exercise, that's why we work out. And what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And that's why we use alpha hydroxy acid. So there's a type of stress called eustress. Eu is a Greek prefix that means good. So eustress is beneficial and that's why working out is so important. And, and exercising your brain, doing crossword puzzles and learning new languages and putting a certain amount of stress on the body is good because that's how the body grows. If, if you, you know, you don't use it you lose it kind of thing. Do you know your adrenal glands can actually atrophy if you don't have a certain amount of stress? Nobody has that problem, you know, in our culture. But these are things that can occur. The real problem with stress, and when you talk about psychodermatology, it's really, we're talking about stress versus relaxation. And I'll tell you about that in a second. The real problem with stress is distress. It's too much stress versus eustress, which is just the right amount of stress. The body is in this constant balance between stress and relaxation. You can think of it as Yang and yin, stress being Yang and relaxation being yin. And it's always in this constant balance. And if you ever look at the Yang, Yin or Yin Yang symbol, you'll see one leads into the other. They kind of go in. They're kind of connected to each other. They're complements to each other. So under conditions of stress, we get. That's how we grow. That's how we get stronger skin. That's how we get a stronger brain. That's how we get stronger muscles, a stronger heart. But under conditions of distress, that is out of balance stress, too much stress compared to relaxation, the body can start to break down. Why? Because stress, or the. Which is the description we give for the emergency response, redirects energy for getting out of a jam, away from building, away from growth, away from all the good stuff in life. So internally, we find that when you're under stress, your digestive system slows down, your thyroid slows down, your immune system becomes suppressed. You have issues with anxiety, you have issues with obesity. You have, you. You don't heal. You don't heal wounds as effectively you do bones, and your muscles start to deteriorate because all of these kinds of requirements are not necessary for getting away from a lion. And to the body, that's really what stress is. It's getting away from a lion. Our bodies are millions of years old, and they don't know about the stresses associated with credit card bills and with our dysfunctional families and the government and our taxes. To the body, stress is getting away from a lion. When you running from a lion, digestion's not important. Bowel movements are not important. Thyroid function and immunity and bone building and muscle recovery and have beautiful skin are not important. So all the energy is redirected to getting away from the lion. Today we have a situation where we're constantly getting away from lions, imaginary lions, mental lions. So many of us are in this constant Stress mode. And that means we're constantly redirecting our energy away from beautiful skin, away from bone building, away from thyroid functioning, away from digestive health, away from immunity. Because our body's trying to get us out of a jam, it thinks that there's lions around every corner. So psychodermatology is the science that studies the relationship of this stress response or conversely the relaxation response on the skin. It's true digestion, thyroid functioning, bone building and immunity, and all these other functions of the body are related to the stress response. Psychodermatology focuses on the skin's relationship to the stress response or conversely, the relaxation response. So what happens to the skin specifically if we zoom in on the skin under conditions of stress? Well, one of the things that happen is you don't build the barrier. The skin is in constant breakdown and buildup mode. But under conditions of stress, buildup is slowed down and so breakdown is not repaired. So thinning skin, barrier problems, problems with the acid mantle that we talked about earlier, susceptibility to bacterial infections, these are all part of an amplified stress response. These are all psycho dermatologic manifestations of the stress response. By the way, psycho means the mind. Dermatology obviously means the skin. Psychodermatology is the study of the mind, mind's relationship to the skin. We talk about the mind, we're really dividing it up into the stress response versus the relaxation response, which is kind of interesting because that's really all the mind and the brain and the body do. They. They rotate between stress and relaxation. That's really how everything functions. We're either in stress mode or in relaxation mode. Net stress or net relaxation. Psychodermatology is the study of the skin's response to whether you're in stress mode or whether you're in relaxation mode. So first thing that happens when you're in distress mode is your barrier does not recover. When the barrier doesn't recover, you're more susceptible to aging, the effects of aging, as well as bacterial infections. And to compound that another manifestation of the stress response on the skin is suppressed immunity. So we find that people who have, who are under chronic stress have psychodermatologic manifestations of eczema, chronic infections, acne, all of which are related to bacterial problems in combination with barrier disruption problems. To compound that one of the manifestations of the stress response is sebaceous secretions. And you can always tell if somebody is living in a psychodermatologic condition of stress by oily skin. Oily skin is one of the Ways the body manifests the stress response, which is kind of interesting because to the body, as we said, the stress response is really about getting away from a lion. Basically, oily skin is the body's way of keeping the lion from eating you. Because when your skin is oily, it's tougher for the animals to get a hold of you. So the body will kind of secrete oil as a protective response. And that's what oil tend to be. They have protective response. And you can always tell if somebody is under stress or a lot of stress or living in that stress mode by oily skin, another manifestation of the stress response. And by the way, oily skin plus bacterial infection plus barrier disruption is where acne comes from. So this is one of the reasons why acne shows up, is because of chronic stress. And to compound that, you see, there's all these compounding variables. Sugar will cause a stress response, will amplify stress response. For one thing, sugar is a toxin to the body. Too much sugar, that is, you need a certain amount, but too much represents a toxin. So that will cause the amplification of a stress response and then hypoglycemia, low blood sugar, which happens after you ingest a lot of sugar, that's also stressful to the body. So between sugar, stress response, secretion of oils, barrier disruption, a susceptibility of bacterial infection, these are all the building blocks for acne. And it's one of the major reasons why acne is such a big problem in Western cultures. Not so much in indigenous cultures, but in Western cultures, because we're under so much stress. Another manifestation of the stress response, which is associated with sebaceous secretions is hyperpigmentation. And you can always tell if somebody is under duress, biochemical duress, or psychological duress. And there's overlap there, obviously, by melasma and hyperpigmentation. And this represents one of the major reasons why melasma is so darn difficult to treat. And also now I think about it, why acne is so difficult to treat. Because we're trying to treat these things topically when they're at least partially the manifestation of psychodermatological functions or dermatological processes. So melasma hyperpigmentation is also associated with the stress response. The stress response is mediated by, as I said earlier, cortisol, stress hormone, but also by estrogen. And so if people are dealing with melasma. And you'll also find that melasma and acne tend to go together, both are mediated by the Stress response, you can only go so far with topical strategies. Melasma in particular, is very, very difficult to treat with topical strategies because of its relationship to the stress response. And it's interesting how estrogen is stress hormone. Now, most people don't think about estrogen as a stress hormone, but it does have a certain amount of overlap with stress along with, along with cortisol. And interestingly, melanin pigment is also part of the stress response. So all of these tend to go together. So between barrier disruption, susceptibility to infections, thinning of the skin, melasma, acne, you have really all of the things that can go wrong with the skin. They're all associated to the stress response, which is psychodermatological. So what do you do if you're dealing with these psychodermatological manifestations, whether it's melasma or acne or thinning skin or susceptibility to bacterial infections? And by the way, immune problems can also be associated with the stress response. Things like psoriasis, which is an autoimmune disease. When we're under more severe stress, we have, we're at greater likelihood of autoimmunity. So what do you do? Well, first of all, obviously, relax, lighten up. And there's lots of ways you can do that. Activating the relaxation nervous system. And I forgot to mention this, but the stress nervous system is the sympathetic nervous system, and the relaxation nervous system is the para sympathetic nervous system. So when we talk about psychodermatology and we break it down into stress versus relaxation neurologically in the body, we're really talking about sympathetic activity versus parasympathetic activity. So the stress response is regulated by the sympathetic nervous system. They call it the fight or flight nervous system. And the relaxation response by the parasympathetic nervous system, the rest and digest nervous system. And if you want to pick one thing that you can do in your life to not only have beautiful skin, not only have healthy skin, not only have functional skin, but also to have beautiful, healthy, functional internal organs, internal body, internal body parts, or internal body functioning is learn to activate the rest and digest nervous system, the relaxation nervous system. And while we talk about psychodermatology as this idea that our mind is under stress, we're thinking too about bad things too much or we're depressed, or we have some kind of negative thought processes, as it turns out, there's more connections going from the body to the brain than from the brain to the body. So the body, when we think of stress, we tend to think of mental stress. But it turns out that a lot of our mental stressors are the end result of our brain reading our body, which means we can hack into our brain by working with our body. And so one of the best ways, or some of the best ways to activate the relaxation response is to work with the body rather than trying to work with the mind. Which is interesting because a lot of times when we're depressed or we're sad, or we have anxiety, or we have these psychological manifestations of stress, we try to override it with thinking, oh, I shouldn't be, I shouldn't feel this bad, or oh, my life isn't this bad, or oh, I can deal with the problem this way or that way, when in reality, we would have much more power over our brain and over our thinking by working with the soma, the body. And that's why breathing is so important. In fact, the fastest way to relax the body, to activate the psychodermatological manifestations of the relaxation response is to breathe. But not just breathe, but breathe correctly. The best way to breathe is what I call SDR breathing. Slow, deep, rhythmic breathing. And so you ever see those old television shows where the hypnotist will go, you are getting sleep. You like that with the watch. The body loves rhythm and the body loves slow. And when you breathe deeply, you activate the diaphragm, which activates the part of the body that is connected to the parasympathetic nervous system, the vagus nerve. And you may have heard of the vagus nerve. People are talking about that a lot today. So slow tells the body it's safe. Deep activates the vagus nerve and rhythm relaxes the body. The body loves rhythm and relaxes the brain. So slow, deep, rhythmic breathing that will put you into a relaxation mode quicker than anything. Another way to activate the parasympathetic nervous system. The relaxation response is warm water. What do you do when you say, I'm going to go take a bath. Right. Isn't that true?
- [14:02]
Maggie Stasik
No, I say, I'm going to go drink a cocktail.
- [14:04]
Ben Fuchs
You're going to drink a cocktail. Okay.
- [14:05]
Benjamin Knife Fuchs
That's another way.
- [14:06]
Ben Fuchs
That's another way to do it. Is wine definitely has a relaxation responsibility. What happens in the bath? The bath slows everything down. It relaxes everything. And in fact, when you're immersed in warm water, you're communicating to the body and then to the brain that you're back in the last place where you were truly safe. Which was where?
- [14:27]
Maggie Stasik
The womb.
- [14:28]
Ben Fuchs
The womb. A bath tells the body it's in the womb. So a bath is warm water, Even just warm water on your face or even a warm shower will do that. In fact, you may know. Have you ever noticed that when you're in a take a shower, all of a sudden you have great ideas? You never notice that. What? A lot of people have great ideas in the shower, you know? Yeah. In fact, some people keep notepads in the shower. Shower. Yeah, I always have great episode. Well, what happens is when you're. When you activate the relaxation response, the blood goes from the back of your brain, your fight or flight area, they call it the reptilian brain, to the front of your brain. And one of the manifestations, by the way, the stress response is activation of this fight or flight energy. And that's where road rage comes in. On the other hand, warm water will redirect blood flow to the front of the brain. Bottom line, what I'm trying to say is warm water is great for the relaxation response. Also along the same lines, muscle relaxation, progressive muscle relaxation will also activate the relaxation response. Then there are mental ways to activate the relaxation response. Gratitude is one of the best ways to activate the relaxation response, which is, as I said earlier, the parasympathetic nervous system response. The parasympathetic nervous system is your rest and digest nervous system. So gratitude not only is important for the skin from a psychodermatologic perspective, but it's also important for the digestive system. By the way, focusing is another way to activate the relaxation response. Focusing on your fingers, focusing on your toes, on your feet or your hands, focusing on a part of the body activates the relaxation response. And all of these things I'm telling you about, warm water, gratitude, focusing on a part of the body, slow, deep, rhythmic breathing, they can be leveraged for sleep. You know, insomnia is a epidemic. You ever see how many pillow commercials there are and mattress commercials and bed commercials and sleep formulations that are out there? We have, like a collective epidemic in this country of insomnia. One of the best ways to fall asleep is to activate this parasympathetic nervous system. Whether it's by thinking things you're grateful for, Focusing on a part of your body, slow, deep breathing, taking a warm bath before you go to sleep. These are all great ways to activate the parasympathetic nervous system for psychodermatologic benefits. And while we're talking about the internal part of the body, this will also benefit you. If you have acne or if you have oily skin, or if you have an immune disease like psoriasis or vitiligo, or if you have just plain old eczema or aging, accelerated aging or dry skin. All of these are ways that you can improve your skin. One of my favorite ways to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, you probably love this one, is watch cat videos. Watching something that is more vulnerable than you is an awesome way to activate the parasympathetic nervous system. The relaxation response for beautiful body and for beautiful skin. And this is why they give PTSD veterans who come from home, from Iraq or Afghanistan, what do they give them? Emotional support animals. Because when you have an animal that is more vulnerable than you, that you can take care of, you activate the parasympathetic nervous system. Most of us are going through our lives with a sympathetic activation of oh my God, there's danger at every turn. When you give your attention to something more vulnerable than you, like an animal or a baby for that matter, you activate the parasympathetic nervous system. So learning to activate the parasympathetic nervous system the not only has psychodermatological benefits, not only has skin benefits, but it has internal benefits, which of course will also benefit the skin as well. The body will go into stress mode when it perceives a lack of nutrients. So making sure that you're nutritive effectively with micronutrients, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, fatty acids internally will activate the relaxation response for psychodermatological benefits, but also topically. And this is one of the reasons why my truth treatments, I always focus on vitamins, minerals, amino acids and fatty acids topically for the skin. Because just like using micronutrients internally will activate the parasympathetic nervous system for psychodermatological benefits. Likewise topically. Now you may some people who are thinking, hey, what about exfoliation? What about alpha hydroxy acids? What about stressors on the skin? Yes, it's true that stressors on the skin will have an anti relaxation response. But when you follow up stressors with topical nutrition, you leverage the anabolic or the building properties of the stressors and you tell the skin that it's got enough resources that it can do what it needs to do to build the barrier and make more collagen and moisture factors, et cetera. So the combination of exercise or stressors on the skin that activate the stress response with a topical nutrition which tell the body it's safe and activate the parasympathetic or relaxation response is the perfect topical strategy for leveraging psychodermatological benefits that.
- [19:25]
Maggie Stasik
Concludes our show for today, and we thank you for listening. But if you just can't get enough of Ben Fuchs, the ASCP's rogue pharmacist, you can find him@truthtreatments.com for more information on this episode, or for ways to connect with Benfuchs, or to learn more about ascp, check out the show notes.