Growing up, I was “blessed” with good skin and had no major issues, even throughout my teenage hormonal years as I watched many of my classmates struggle with acne, psoriasis and eczema.
That all changed in college, when I started going to yoga classes at the student gym in an effort to decompress from the stresses of assignments and exams. Soon after, large red painful pimples started appearing on my left cheek and I just assumed they had reared their ugly head to say hello as I tried to get through my final year of college.
I went to see my dermatologist soon after graduation and was told I had a condition called rosacea and was put on a course of antibiotics. A few months later, my skin went back to normal and I stopped having to spend a fortune on concealer.
Yoga and My Skin Issues
Flash forward a few years – as my practice grew more consistent, the more I struggled with skin issues. I generally don’t sweat like crazy, except for in one area of my body: my head and face.
Oftentimes, I will look like I dunked my head, and only my head, in a pool after a challenging yoga class.
The more pimples and painful cysts that I got, the more I would complain and become self-conscious, and my friends would ask, “shouldn’t your skin get better if you do more yoga?” I thought so as well, after all yoga helps to improve blood circulation, calms the nervous system and “detoxifies” the body – right?
