A woman’s complexion is intimately connected with her feelings of self-confidence and power: it’s the “face” she shows to the world. No wonder women spend so much time and money on beauty products and make-up. We’ve been taught to medicate or cover-up our so-called flaws instead of figuring out why they are there in the first place.

No matter what line a beauty company tries to sell you, the basic fact is that a beautiful face is not just skin deep. Think of a plant – the first indication that it needs water is its droopy leaves. It may revive a bit if you spray some water on its surface, but in order to restore the plant to vibrancy you have to water its roots.

Paying loving attention to the health of your skin is one of the best and easiest ways to listen to your body. Whatever is going on inside will eventually show up on the outside. So if you have skin concerns, chances are you need to look beyond the surface to discover what is really going on — the anatomy of the skin is linked to all our major functions, including the immune, respiratory, circulatory, lymph and neurotransmitter systems.

By the time a woman sees visible signs of aging (usually in her mid 30’s or early 40’s), it’s highly likely she’s been operating with low-grade inflammation for years. Undiagnosed food sensitivities, poor diet, stress, hormonal imbalance, toxic overload and a sedentary lifestyle challenge the immune system, making it harder for the body to fight inflammation on the inside. On the outside, cheap or toxic skin care products, lack of nourishment from the outside, and bacteria and environmental toxins trigger an immune response that ultimately weakens collagen, dilates surface blood capillaries and clogs pores. How this manifests in your skin is individual to you, but for most of us it appears as uneven skin tone, sporadic or chronic outbreaks and, of course, the dreaded premature aging.

Now you may think that there’s not much you can do about aging skin — you can’t help getting older every year. But there is. The aging I am talking about is not chronological. It’s cellular, or biological, aging. It means that the DNA inside a healthy cell has become fragmented or shortened, which affects the mitochondria inside the cell.

Mitochondria are the fuel factories in our cells that convert the food we eat into energy. When mitochondria malfunction, the cell dies. How well we age, including our vulnerability to disease is due in part to how healthy our mitochondria are. Recent studies have linked oxidative stress — the accumulation of free radicals in the cell — and genetic defects in mitochondria with premature aging.