4 tips to heal your Rosacea for good
Hey guys, if you know me then you’re aware of my battle with Rosacea.
I’ve wanted to create this article for a long time as a reference for anyone struggling with the condition as I know it can sometimes feel like a daunting process.
I’ve also created several Youtube videos on the topic that you can find here.
Let’s break down how I healed my Rosacea in 4 steps.
My 4-Step Approach
01. Mindfulness & Nervous System Regulation
I tried for months to figure out the ‘trigger’ but the truth is there was many. The one consistent symptom every single time my Rosacea was at its worst was stress, operating in fight or flight.
If you take one piece of information from this article then please take this, do not underestimate the effect stress is having on your skin.
Reducing sympathetic nervous system stimulating or ‘fight or flight’ changed the game for me.
When our bodies are under stress everything constricts, and our internal organs go into ‘protection mode.’ In ancient Chinese medicine anger is associated with the wood element known as the Liver. When we feel stress, frustration or anger over long periods this can load the liver, causing constraint and heat that then rises to the head. Have you ever bottled something up or been frustrated and passive aggressive and felt this heat building in the body like the steam coming up out of a kettle? That feeling.
When our nervous system is overloaded, everything is working overtime, depleting our life force and energy source. Our digestion is poor, sleep shallow and mood erratic, these lifestyle choices create heat in the body and like your house with the heater on, heat rises.
So, let’s calm down our nervous system, it truly must be a priority not just for your skin but to prevent chronic health problems in the future.
My current mindfulness routine looks like;
I get up before anyone else, so I have peace and quiet to myself (I also go to sleep before anyone else)
I write in my journal, I let all frustrations, anger, resentment and heavy emotions out on that piece of paper.
Then I practice Pranayama (breathing exercises) that activate my parasympathetic nervous system. I begin with Nadi Shadhana alternate nostril breathing. Block your left nostril, breathe in through your right, block your right and breathe out your left, repeat each side. There’s plenty of YouTube videos on this exercise for you. This helps to balance the Yin and Yang the masculine and feminine of the body and leave us centered. Sometimes I will do extra breathing, In on the left (feminine) especially if I feel stressed and out of my right (masculine) to release the masculine and find grounding in the feminine.
Breathe in for 5 out for 10, this count changes every day if I am feeling really stressed sometimes the out breath which stimulates our parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest) can be really challenging and I only get to 6 or 8. The slower the out breath the more benefit.
The most important thing is to do what feels right for you, I won’t list how long I do these exercises for because sometimes it’s 5 minutes sometimes 30, it’s so important to feel into what your body needs and of course what you have time for. These rituals in total usually take me about 20 minutes.
02. Emotional Triggers
“Our emotions are physically stored in our bodies, when we understand this,
we truly revolutionize our health and our state of being.”
I know I have spoken to this previously, but I truly have more I would love to share after a recent experience doing some energy work. We were doing work around fear, I was experiencing a lot of subconscious fear, fear of the future, fear of missing out on friends and family, fear of becoming sick again and general day to day fears manifesting as anxiety. As we worked through the session I felt this overwhelming heat rise up through my body and deep into my face and head. We acknowledged the sensation associated with the fear and I released it back into the universe. I put trust back into my body, trust into mother earths divine timing and trust I would see my family again soon. The heat slowly dissipated until it completely cleared. Now in day-to-day life when I feel a fear creep in, that discomfort in my body start I acknowledge it straight away, take a few deep breaths coming back to the trust I have in my body and the universe and every time it fades away.
Ask yourself these three things…
What is my internal dialogue? Is it helping or hindering my health?
If it’s hindering like most of ours are, maybe it’s time to think into where those thoughts come from, where do you feel them in your body, what emotion does it bring up?
What is playing into my fears right now? Is it the state of the world? Your financial situation? The unknown?
How will I transition myself from operating in a place of fear to a place of trust and knowingness, what will I implement into my life to support myself?
03. Gut Dysbiosis
If you’ve watched my Youtube video on SIBO you probably know a lot of this information but for those that haven’t I will link it here.
Gut health is truly overwhelming for most of us so I’m going to put this as simply as possible in relation to how your gut health could be triggering your Rosacea.
SIBO, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth is a form of dysbiosis where the bacteria supposed to be living in the large intestine migrate into the small intestine where they aren’t meant to be. 60% of people diagnosed with IBS actually have SIBO, you can check for SIBO doing a breath of saliva test but symptoms are often sufficient to me.
Leaky gut, all of us have some level of leaky gut, basically where the gut membrane has become permeable due to environmental toxins, toxins in our food, western drugs and high stress. The question is how severe is your leaky gut? When our gut becomes “leaky” the obvious happens, molecules that don’t belong in the blood stream end up there causing an inflammatory response, over stimulating the immune system and sending our body into a false sense of fight or flight. High histamine levels have been directly linked to leaky gut by many leading integrated doctors another factor contributing to Rosacea for many people. The best way to repair the gut lining is through regulating the nervous system, using supplements to repair the gut integrity and limit the toxic load entering the body.
Food is our friend, low histamine, gut nourishing foods. Soups, broths, stews are always a gut favourite, try not to obsess with whether food is 100% low fodmap or low histamine, instead just leaning on cooked, gentle, easy to digest foods with a good amount of protein, leafy greens (cooked) and plenty of healthy fats like Avocado, cold pressed Olive Oil and coconut oil.
04. Hormones
I always found my rosacea would flare up at any significant hormonal transition throughout the month, ovulation and pre menstruation. After plenty of research and tests we discovered I had really low progesterone levels that were contributing to my PMS symptoms, mood swings, depression and anxiety all of which contributed to the state and health of my skin.
On a physical level hormone imbalance can manifest itself as Acne, hair loss and fatigue but energetically when our body is out of balance so too is how we sleep, our thoughts and how we process emotions. My biggest advice is these three things: Regulate your blood sugar, look after your nervous system & support your detox pathways so you can begin healing your hormones naturally and feeling like yourself again.
I wrote an Ebook on exactly this, I hope it helps!
I hope this gives anyone experiencing Rosacea a little pointer in the right direction, I truly understand how painful, uncomfortable and disheartening it can be but I promise if I can do it so can you.
with love,
Georgia
With love,
