7 Lifestyle Tips to Reduce Eczema Flares
Now that we’re entering the crisp fall season, it’s more important than ever to protect your skin barrier, especially if you struggle with dry skin + eczema! Our skin is our largest organ, and in my not so humble opinion, the most important organ!
Our skin helps us detoxify, regulate our body temperature, and is an important physical barrier between us and our environment. When our skin barrier is damaged, like in eczema, it allows irritants, bacteria, and other pathogens in as well as hydrating water out, which creates the perfect storm for worsening dry, cracked, bleeding skin, and can even lead to secondary infections of the skin!
Our goal is to reduce these eczema flares to protect the skin barrier and help heal the skin naturally from the inside-out.
Here are our Top 7 Lifestyle Tips to Reduce Eczema Flares:
Avoid Hot Showers + Baths
It is important to protect your skin barrier, because it is quite literally the only physical barrier between you and your surrounding environment. Hot showers and baths can lead to drying out our skin, and with the added cold and dry environment this season, paired with someone’s tendency toward dry and cracked skin, it is a recipe for eczema flares!
I get it, I myself do love hot showers and baths, but lowering the temperature ever so slightly can be incredibly beneficial for reducing eczema flares, I’ll take that! Instead of your scalding hot water, try opting for warm or lukewarm water that is more gentle on your skin and skin barrier! If you’re a bath lover like me, check out these nourishing and skin barrier-protective ingredients to add to your bath tonight!
Use Irritant-Free Soap
Just like how the temperature of our water can cause worsening of dry, cracked, skin in eczema, soap is just as bad a culprit! The synthetic surfactants and detergents in soap strip our skin of its natural protective oils and cause dry skin to flare with itchy, painful eczema lesions. Make sure to check the ingredients of the soap you’re using and use soap that is free of irritating ingredients like parabens, SLS, SLES, and fragrance, even natural fragrance!
Choosing the type of soap is important, but also how and where you use the soap! Make sure to only use soap where you need to when showering- think skin folds like underarms and groin. Using soap on our extremities is not necessary, unless there are signs of physical dirt in those areas. Using the right kind of soap only where you need to can significantly help to reduce eczema flares!
Apply Thick Moisturizers
The shower temperature and type of soap are important to prevent drying out your skin even more, but the most important bathing tip is to lock in moisture after your shower or bath by applying thick ointments or creams! Make sure your skin is still damp when you apply your moisturizer for even more hydration! Thick ointments provide a protective layer over the skin to help lock in moisture and prevent the skin from drying out. Thick creams can also contain important ceramides and fatty acids needed to replenish the skin’s impaired barrier. Natural oils like coconut oil can also be helpful for eczema with its fatty acids and antibacterial effect.
Know + Avoid Food Triggers
Our skin health is so closely tied to our gut health. This intimate connection is called the gut-skin-axis. Eczema is one of the known conditions related to the gut. Increased intestinal permeability also known as “leaky gut” is associated with eczema which is considered to be a “leaky skin” condition.
The skin barrier is much like our gut lining that prevents bacteria, irritants, and toxins from entering the body. When these barriers are compromised, it can lead to inflammation and worsening of our digestive and skin’s health. Food sensitivities are triggers for leaky gut which leads to leaky skin- eczema.
Common food sensitivities in eczema are dairy, eggs, gluten, sugar, and citrus, but every person can have unique triggers to them, and it is important to know which can be affecting your health.
Food triggers can cause digestive symptoms like gas, bloating, loose stool, and eczema flares. It is important to learn which foods may be triggers, and avoid them during treatment. It may be hard to identify food triggers, so a diet + symptom diary can help to look for connections between the foods you eat, your digestive symptoms, and your eczema flares.
Focus on Stress Management
Skin conditions are unique in that people can see the patches on your skin. The fact that people can see your skin patches is extremely stressful, and turns out, stress makes your skin issues worse. Psychological stress plays a major role in eczema flares. The more stressed a person is, the more frequent and more severe their eczema flares are.
Focus on managing your stress with self-care practices like movement, mindfulness, reading, journaling, and seeking out emotional support can do much more benefit than improving your mental health! I know it may be easier said than done, but practicing mindfulness exercises, self-care routines, and self-love and compassion a little each day can dramatically shift your mindset and improve your skin right before your eyes!
Get Plenty of Sleep
Sleep, like stress can either negatively or positivity affect eczema. Most people don’t get nearly enough sleep, or not enough restful sleep and this can become a barrier to heal eczema and make flares worse. Make sure to get plenty of adequate sleep. Sleep duration + quality can directly impact eczema severity and frequency of flares! If you have chronic issues with sleep, it is important to seek out a local Naturopathic Doctor to help you get to the root cause of your sleep issues. If you need help tracking your sleep length and quality, try out one of the many sleep tracking devices and apps available. Aim for 8 hours of consistent sleep a night, and begin to notice how much you better you feel inside and out.
Tune into Your Gut Health
Our gut health is so closely tied to our skin health, and digestive symptoms are just as important to look into as skin symptoms. Some common symptoms of poor gut health include gas, bloating, loose stool, or constipation. You should have a bowel movement every day, if not 2-3 times a day that should be well-formed and easy to pass. If you skip days or have stools that are small, hard, and difficult to pass, that counts as constipation in my book!
It is important to be aware of these digestive symptoms, and not brush them off as being normal, because they’re not, especially if you’re experiencing skin issues. Tune into your gut health and don't let symptoms of gas, bloating, constipation, or loose stool go untreated. Probiotics aren't enough to address your concerns and can even make them worse! It is important to seek care from a Naturopathic Doctor to test for and treat any digestive concerns you may be having to be able to help heal your skin in the long run.
A Holistic Approach is Needed to Treat Eczema
It is so important to take into account diet, lifestyle, digestion, sleep, stress, and bathing habits into account when addressing eczema. Just treating the skin is not enough, and won't provide a long-term solution. Check out our other blogs on Eczema to learn more about specific foods to eat and avoid for eczema and this mighty food that can reduce eczema flares when used on the skin!
Have you tried all of these and are still struggling with eczema? Let’s connect! Click here to book your complimentary Discovery Call to see how we can help you heal your eczema naturally. Ready to heal your skin for good? Click here to book your New Patient Visit today and heal with us!
Dr. Ashley Dumont, ND is a Licensed Naturopathic Doctor in Portsmouth, NH at Coastal Thyme Holistic Skin + Wellness and specializes in holistic skin health and wellness from the inside-out. She is accepting new patient visits.
