Circadian Skincare

Three surprising keys to happy, healthy skin.

As anyone who has suffered skin woes knows, skin healing can be a frustrating journey. The dermatologists have pretty limited toolsets for helping! If it doesn’t go away with a pill or a paste, you are pretty much on your own.

When I was a teen, I suffered from acne and exzema. In my twenties I additionally suffered hyperpigmentation from pregnancy and allergic contact dermatitis. Truth be told, I still suffer from an occasional pimple or two, but the other 3 conditions rarely trouble me at all anymore! Woohoo!

Since all those pills and pastes offered by the pharmacy didn't work for me, I had to to find a better way.

By seeking alternatives, I discovered something that helped me heal all at once: chronobiology.

The skin and it’s healing, like most processes, are under circadian control. This means caring for circadian rhythms also care for skin.

The big deal is that these changes have nothing to do with all the things we think of as having to do with skin health.

-it’s not a new product or treatment

-it’s not a new wash or scrub

-it’s not a new diet or food restriction

Instead, you take care of circadian rhythms by:

1. Embracing your local environment’s light/dark cycle

2. Matching your home’s thermal cycle with your local environment’s thermal cycle

3. Habitually fasting through the night

4. Absorbing lots of collagen-stimulating infrared

5. Using natural skincare products at night to take advantage of the fact that your skin heals itself at night (I find sesame oil and tallow especially nourishing)

To get into this, you need to set your bedroom up as a cool, dark cave.

You also need a comfortable place to spend a lot of time outdoors.

This space should be close to your home, if not connected to your home.

It should have a fairly clear and unobstructed Southern view.

Looking out, the East is to your left and the West is to your right.

This outdoor space with your sky view is what is going to set your body’s rhythms.

Photo by James Wheeler.

You will use your outdoor space to observe the 4 quarters of the day: sunset, midnight, sunrise and high-noon.

If you are a night-owl, you may enjoy your midnights under moonlight and candles.

But if you are a morning lark, you probably sleep peacefully through the darkness of night in your cool, quiet bedroom.

Either way, the point is to spend a good 10-14 hours in dimness to darkness each night (even if you are awake/working).

And then to absorb as much early morning daylight as you can.

Get a decent dose of UV light around noon (could be as little as 15 minutes depending on time of year and skin type). More about UV light here:

This all applies even if you work night-shift and get most of your sleep during the day. If you do shift work, check out my guide:

If you are not used to sunbathing without sunscreen, please learn how to (safely) build a solar callus.

This method for entraining circadian rhythms and healing your skin won't work if you use sunscreen all the time.

Here’s a post I wrote describing the 8 things I have learned about ditching sunscreen (so far):

Skin protects itself.

And another update about the different types of tans:

For my family, this whole “circadian rhythm lifestyle” worked out to adopting gardening as a hobby and patio-dining as often as weather will allow.

As long as you wrap dinner up by sunset and don't snack at night, you should be well on your way to strong rhythmicity. And through rhythmicity, optimal skin healing.

Know someone who has “tried everything” for their skin? Share this post with them!