Can Exercise Actually Improve Your Skin?

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Dr Emma Craythorne (1:00)

I can honestly say that I think it's one of the best things I've probably ever done.

Dr Ellie Rashid (1:04)

The more active they were, the severity of their psoriasis was also less than those that were less active.

Dr Emma Craythorne (1:10)

So you get this actual true dermal thickening. Note, sometimes exercise can be not so good for the skin.

Dr Ellie Rashid (1:18)

I'm going to fix on this, darling.

Dr Emma Craythorne (1:25)

I thought we could do this episode, Ellie, because recently whenever I did the photo and the video shoot for Clara, you said to me, so what have you been doing to make sure that everything is just like perfect for that shoot? And one of the things I said to you was I've been making sure I've been doing my exercise every single day.

So I thought it would be really good to think about the benefits of exercising, but I'm talking about the direct benefit on our skin, because this is actually a proven way that you can build up the dermal thickness of your skin and it is completely free, but you just have to exercise.

Dr Ellie Rashid (2:05)

What do you think of those face gyms?

Dr Emma Craythorne (2:07)

Oh, the face gym, I'm not talking about that kind of exercise.

This is Ellie's kind of exercise. You don't do any exercise, do you?

Dr Ellie Rashid (2:16)

So I actually do now do exercise. So first thing to say is I don't do exercise in that I don't go to a gym, but I actually like walk everywhere. I find the gym environment quite intimidating, but I walk absolutely everywhere. I'm always the person like going up the escalators. I love walking.

Dr Emma Craythorne (2:35)

Free exercise.

Dr Ellie Rashid (2:36)

That's what I call that. Free exercise, but also like I just think I've got relatively good habits. Like I'm always out with the kid, so always moving. I'm never like sedentary. But the reason why I've now started exercising and doing some muscle strength training is because my best friend from medical school, Anna, we were just having coffee together and she looked at me and she went, Elle, you're gonna really need to start doing some weight-based exercises. Like you're not gonna get away with it anymore. You're over 40 now, like way over 40 So you're over 40 now and you need to start incorporating some. I was like, I mean, do you do any exercise? She's like, yeah.

And so I thought, you know what, I'm gonna get, I'm gonna start as well. So all I've started with is I bought some free weights and I'm just been doing some weight-based exercises based on YouTube video. That's a good start.

Dr Emma Craythorne (3:26)

It's a really good start because it is good that you're a busy person and actually the studies have kind of shown that if you're, you know, the person who sits at a desk all day or drives a car all day and then will go and spend one hour in the gym three times a week and then spends the rest of the time just sitting in the couch. It's better than nothing, but it's not really so good. You should be active for most of the day. And so you are so active. You're always on the go. But the fact you're given this considered time to yourself to do actual weights for kind of resistance training, I think that's a really good thing for you.

And I'm not even just talking about kind of the idea that you have the exercise part of it, but sometimes just the mindfulness of being by yourself while you are thinking about how to lift a weight properly can actually have additional benefits to it than just the exercise itself.