During my acne journey, one of the hardest things I had to deal with was resisting the urge in popping pimples and picking at my skin.
Everyone tells you that you shouldn’t pop your pimples and if you do pop them the problem will multiply.
It is true that picking and squeezing pimples that aren't at a surface yet can increase risk of scarring or cause further inflammation of the pimple.
This is because the increased pressure from picking and squeezing at a pimple can cause damage to the cell walls and the pore that's holding in the infection.
If you have inflammatory acne, there is usually an infection happening too so picking at it can cause the existing acne and skin around it to get more irritated leading to more acne.
It's hard to resist, but here are some tips to try out to help keep your from picking at your pimples and popping them too early!
FIRST TIP - Put on a hydrocolloid bandage
If you are at home, try applying a small hydrocolloid bandage over your pimple. Keeping your pimple covered with this bandage will help keep you from picking at it.
Hydrocolloid bandages also have the added benefit of drawing out and absorbing the pus from inflamed acne.
SECOND TIP - Avoid mirrors
The second tip is to avoid mirrors as much as possible. When I had acne, I was constantly going to the mirror to see what my face was up to. Every time I went to the bathroom, I would be in there for several minutes staring at every little pimple and spend time picking at it.
Third Tip - Keep Hands Busy with Fidget Toys or a Stress Ball
The third tip is to keep your hands busy with something else. Yes, it is a temporary distraction and may be hard to do at first before you break the pimple squeezing habit.
Whenever I would be on the computer or watching TV I would constantly be touching my face or picking off the dead skin on my face.
Having some kind of fidget toy, or small stress ball in my hand helps so that every time I felt the urge to touch my face I would play with the rubber band or squeeze the stress ball instead to keep my hands busy.
Fourth Tip - Keep Nails either very short, or have long acrylic nails
Having very short nails may help prevent you from picking at pimples, or accidently scratching a pimple's surface. Going the opposite direction of having long acrylic nails can generally make it harder to do things with your hands, so this may impede on your pimple popping too.
Final Tip - Apply ointment to reduce the pain of the pimple and treat it
If you must do something, the final tip is to apply some treatment for your acne that also takes down the inflammation quickly. We like the Fighter Gel since it is anti inflammatory, and it also contains a small amount of menthol and peppermint to act as an analgesic to relieve pain. Sometimes, relieving the pain of an acne breakout helps us to forget that it is there so we're less likely to pick at it.
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