What Is Lifestyle Syncing Your Skin Care? The Beauty-Editor-Approved Skin Care Routine, Explained 

It can feel overwhelming to know how to take care of your skin, no? Between the revolving door of social media trends and constant stream of product drops, there's no shortage of messages out there telling you that you *need* to take care of your skin in a specific way.

However, I'm going to argue that the best teacher of how to care for your skin is—well—your skin! Every day, your skin sends you messages about what exactly it's looking for based on what's happening at a given point in time. If you just pay attention to these cues, you can better support your skin health and longevity. 

That's exactly what lifestyle syncing is all about. Rather than bouncing from trendy ingredient to trendy ingredient, this skin care method is about tailoring your routine and products to what your body and skin are dealing with at that moment. 

Lifestyle syncing isn't a revolutionary concept. Lots of folks practice their own version of this every day without knowing it. However, for others who feel their skin care routine is in a rut, feels stagnant, or is no longer suiting their needs, it might be the extra push you need to reach your skin care goals. 

As an overview, lifestyle syncing is tailoring your skin care routine depending on what is happening in your life at any given time. This could mean being extra gentle to the skin after a bad night's sleep, offsetting inflammation from a night out drinking, or balancing oil production during times of stress. On the other hand, lifestyle syncing is also about knowing when to optimize your skin care routine in order to get enhanced results. 

Lifestyle syncing is less a prescriptive skin care routine and more a framework to build your skin care routine around. It does, however, require you to be more mindful of the ways your skin reacts to triggers. 

One way to do that is through a skin care journal. No, you don't need to write page-long soliloquies about your skin, but jotting down notes day to day can help you get to know your skin a bit better. 

"Over time, [journaling] gives you a lot of clues as to what really your skin gravitates toward," says Alicia Yoon, celebrity esthetician and founder of Peach & Lily. And, alternatively, what it cannot bear. 

Related: Check out our guide to journaling and even our favorite journals.

It's important to get an adequate amount of sleep for a whole litany of reasons outside of your appearance, but since we're talking about skin care in this article, that's what I'll focus on. During sleep is when the skin barrier repairs itself1, so by skimping on that precious regeneration time—the skin may suffer the consequences. 

Stress and oil production go hand-in-hand in the body—quite literally. The hormone that triggers cortisol also triggers sebum production. So as cortisol increases in the body, oil production does as well.

For some, this can lead to acne and blemish flare-ups: "This can lead to increased oil production3 [which clogs the pores], and these lesions tend to be inflamed and sometimes painful," board-certified dermatologist and founder of Hudson Dermatology and Laser Surgery Dhaval Bhanusali, M.D., FAAD, tells mbg.

The summer is nearly upon us, which means many of us will be spending more time outdoors and exposed to the elements. This is a good thing! It's great to be outdoors! However, it does come with some potentially damaging exposure to pollution and UV rays.

Fueling your body with the nutrients it needs for strong, youthful skin starts with a robust diet. "I always tell people: When you build a house, you want to build a house from the best building blocks you possibly can," says Jennifer Hanway, board-certified holistic nutritionist. "And we constantly need to be giving our bodies new building blocks to be able to regenerate our cells."

Fun fact: Strength training doesn't just strengthen your muscles but also strengthens your skin! 

In a study published in Scientific Reports, scientists split up 56 healthy but inactive middle-aged Japanese women into two groups: One group completed aerobic training, and the other participated in resistance training twice a day for 16 weeks. 

The results: Both types of exercise plans improved skin elasticity and upper dermal structure; however, only resistance training was found to increase dermal thickness—and this structural integrity is crucial for supple, firm skin. Researchers specifically found molecules called biglycans in these participants' blood samples, which are linked to skin firmness7. On the flip side, they found a decrease in molecules that inhibit biglycans, like cytokines.