Name: What stress does to your skin and what you can do about it - BBC World Service
Uploaded: 2026-03-30T10:50:35.000Z
Duration: 5 min 2 s
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Our brain and our skin develop from the same group of cells in the early embryo,

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When the brain's under stress, your skin can feel it too.

Here's how: Humans evolved to feel stress as a natural response to threats.

In small doses, it can help us be more alert and react appropriately.

Stress can become harmful when we start to feel like you cannot control it, or that it is unpredictable.

Stress activates the amygdala, a part of the brain involved in primitive emotions.

This signals to a command centre called the hypothalamus, which triggers glands to make various hormones like cortisol and adrenaline.

These travel in the bloodstream all over the body, including to your skin.

We are wired from head to toe to feel stress.

As well as receiving hormones from the brain's stress response, the skin releases its own stress chemicals too.

Your skin will talk to your brain, and your brain will talk to your skin.

And then the effects of those combined is what causes the skin changes that we can see.

The stress chemicals can boost inflammation and reduce the fatty lipids that make up the outer skin barrier.

This can make the skin more porous, leaving it feeling drier or more sensitive.

What we tend to lose from the skin barrier is important things like water.

We also can become more sensitive to things in the outside environment.

So, for example, allergens like pollen or someone else's fragrance get into the skin and cause irritation.

A number of small studies looked at stress and measured the skin barrier by pulling a piece of sticky tape off the skin, then seeing how quickly it recovers and stops water escaping.

In one study, volunteers were told to deliver a speech, then solve a maths problem in front of a hostile audience.

Their skin barrier recovered more slowly compared to a non-stressed group, who were asked to simply read an article on their own.

Stress also activates cells within the skin to release chemicals like histamine that make you feel itchy, supercharging what's called the itch-scratch cycle.

You feel itchy, you scratch, you cause further skin damage,

and that triggers you to feel even more itchy so you scratch again.

At the same time, stress reduces antimicrobial peptides in the skin, small molecules that normally kill off germs, making infections like cold sores or shingles more likely.

What's more, the stress chemicals are thought to stimulate glands in the skin to make more of an oily substance called sebum, which can contribute to spots.

This might be one of the reasons why people with more stress also tend to have worse acne in various studies.

For example, one small study looked at medical students early in the academic quarter and again just before an exam.

The more their stress increased, the worse their acne got.

Stress can trigger flare-ups in other skin conditions like eczema, psoriasis, and hives too.

And while it's less researched, there is some evidence that stress might change and reduce the amount of collagen, another building block of the skin.

Then technically you can experience issues like loss of firmness, loss of suppleness, increasing lines and wrinkles.

Noticing the stressor is the first thing.

And we can notice the stress on our skin.

You might feel some neck pain or your stomach in a knot, difficulty sleeping, forgetting things, irritability.

Experts say exercise, seeing friends, and even meditation can help relieve the stress your brain's feeling.

Simple things that you can do yourself are to think about your skin barrier.

In your normal skin care, looking for more hydrating products, for example, if your skin is feeling dry.

I normally recommend diets that are good in healthy fats, lean proteins, fresh fruit and vegetables, making sure you're well hydrated.

Some experts say it can take three months to know if any treatments or lifestyle changes are really improving the skin.

If you have a skin condition that is aggravated by stress, it's, of course, important to address the stress element and address the actual skin condition.

Skin is a manifestation of the health of your body.