5 Ways to Embrace a Healthy Skin Mindset This Summer

Most people associate summer’s skincare needs primarily with sun protection. While having a healthy skin:sun exposure balance is certainly paramount, summer is also a time of year that can affect the skin in other ways, primarily stress. Whether it’s because the kids are off, or your clients are on vacation, or you’re planning a less-than-relaxing vacation yourself, or your summer “vacation” consists mainly of catching up on everything you didn’t have time for during the earlier seasons–the disruption of your regular schedule and the stress that comes along with it can wreak havoc on your skin. That’s where the importance of a healthy skin mindset comes in.

Nourishment— beyond food— creates resilience and radiance for your body.

Here are our top 5 heathy skin mindset suggestions to help make this summer most nourishing for you, so your skin glows from the inside out.

1. Check your expectations.

Is summer only successful IF you have a slim, beach-ready, pre-tanned body in the perfect bathing suit? Is your vision of a summer get-together so detailed it would make Martha Stewart sweat?

If your personal ‘summer debut prep list’ is so demanding that you feel like you have failed before the season has even begun in earnest, maybe it is time to revisit your list. If the picture in your head of a healthy, happy summer vacationer is not the likeness you see in the mirror, maybe it’s time to select some new snapshots. Take good look at the expectations you put on yourself and your summer and make sure they’re ones that you want to embrace. You might find that many your expectations come from past family experiences or are composites born from the media images of your youth. Release expectations that feel exasperating, inaccessible, or overwhelmingly complex. Keep the ones that make you feel like you….with sunshine.

2. Savor the simple summer joys.

Remember when you were a child and you found joy with sand, a scoop and a bucket? Do watermelon, sidewalk chalk, and fireflies still create a summer day well spent?

Let’s stop the glorification of busy. Release the need for perfectionism. ‘Perfect’ and ‘glorious’ summer experiences are available to you right now. They fit into your schedule and your budget: take your coffee to a sunny porch; eat strawberries for breakfast; freeze some smoothie into ice pops; feel the grass between your toes on your lunch break, sip iced tea in the afternoon; put down the cell phone and talk to your neighbor; play hopscotch with your kid; throw a frisbee for the dog; read a good book in the evening breeze; add a drop of lavender and a drop of grapefruit essential oil to an Epsom salt bath; slip on a fresh silky bamboo pillowcase at night.

3. Question limiting or outdated skin beliefs.

Are you embarrassed by pale legs shudder at the thought of glistening stretch marks in summer shorts? Do you think zinc oxide makes you look dorky, or that it’s unladylike to break a sweat?

Our beliefs are products of our repeated thoughts. Many of our beliefs were formed years ago and have not received much continuing evaluation. We may have inherited them from our surrounding culture, built them from information available in our formative years, or shaped them with our early experiences. This summer, we invite you to reevaluate some of your beliefs around skin and skincare and make sure they are still serving you well. This need not be an arduous process. When you catch yourself proclaiming a belief about your skin or yourself out loud, simply challenge it with two questions: 1. Who says? 2. What evidence do I have for or against this? Make sure you are satisfied with the answers. Adopting a healthy skin mindset takes practice!

4. Be kind to yourself.

Has your inner critic become a real bully? Do you belittle yourself in ways you would never allow others to?

Monitor your self talk and treat yourself as you would a beloved friend. If you can’t quite muster that…at least give yourself the courtesy and politeness you extend to that annoying co-worker! Cut yourself some slack, because even your most flawed human self is quite magnificent. Self-love creates resilience and radiance that lasts long after summer fades to fall.

5. Start.

Do you plan on implementing some of these ideas tomorrow or next week? Do you find that upgrades to your self-care routine require undue research (self-justified procrastination)?

The trick to getting around your inner saboteur: start right now. Start with one small change and put it into action. Start anywhere, start with anything— just start. The greatest enemy to change is inertia. So select one thing from this guide, or from your personal list of collected wisdom, and implement it now, in whatever capacity you can. Make yourself some cucumber water (try our delicious beauty water recipe HERE); order your safe, natural sunscreen online or book your spa date. Go on, do it right now.

Get more integrative summer skin tips in our Summer Skin Radiance Guide!

Click HERE to download the entire guide, packed with:

Nutritional inspiration to help boost your skin’s resilience to the sun’s damaging rays
The ideal topical skincare ingredients to help nourish, hydrate, and protect your skin on the outside
Invigorating seasonal spa treatments help nourish, hydrate, and maintain your skin with bright, fresh seasonal ingredients
and more!