Flushing – my nemesis to perfection
“Hey, I loved your presentation. But what happened with your skin. You were red all over, are you ok?”
Fire alarm
I have merely discussed with the professor for two minutes in my always so enthusiastic manner, before I can feel the heat wave creeping up through my chest. He has asked me a sincere question on my choice of speciality and my eager search after the perfect answer has (as usual) triggered a flush that disturbs my thoughts. I panic for a while, smile and say “excuse me, I need to go to the toilet”, before I discretely escape the booze-driven mingling event for a minute to take a breather in the bathroom.
I glance in the mirror and find a beautiful Danish girl with red spots covering her chest and chin. That is flushing (or blushing), and for better or worse it has been a part of my daily life, since I was a teenager. However, the condition remains a bit of a mystery, since there is little available data on its prevalence and since health sites, doctors, psychological centers and retailers of skin products all propose numerous causes.
Flushing is episodic attacks of reddening, typically on the upper chest, neck and the face. It happens, when an increased blood flow causes the vessels to expand. While things such as spicy food and alcohol definitely trigger this process, most medical descriptions adhere to psychological explanations of the phenomena i.e. social anxiety, stress or extreme emotional conditions.
Physical and mental
According to MedicineNet.com, flushing is an uncontrollable response of the nervous system, leading to a widening of the capillaries and subsequent warmth. Since the diameter of the blood vessels of the cheeks are wider than elsewhere, this is where most humans blush. The capillaries widen when the pulse increases, and more blood is pumped through the body.
So what escalates the pulse and brings about the unfortunate red dots on one’s body? Well, both physical challenges such as fever, menopause, heat exposure, alcohol or exercise and/or psychological exposure in the form of embarrassment, stress and performance anxiety can trigger a blush.
Some people – such as myself - are more predisposed to physiologic blushing, because their threshold for responses to emotions such as anger, embarrassment or even sorrow is lower, or because they simply react more strongly than the average. The cover image of this article, which I took whilst working on it, serves as a case of how little it takes my neck to turn spotty.
However, blushing relates greatly to social anxiety, and in my life, it most often occurs when I am the center of attention. Whether on date with a guy, pitching a story idea, sipping red wine at a dinner party or mingling at a journalism network event, I have to take measures in order to avoid the lobster effect. Because as attention swifts to me, and I get excited, the heat is on and self-consciousness steps in with the claustrophobic reminder that “hey, everybody is watching you, and they can see you blushing”.
Anxietycentre.com describes how turning red can both stem from social nervousness or elevated stress levels. Yet, I often wonder, whether I become more easily embarrassed BECAUSE I blush, or whether I blush because I am socially insecure. My experience is that of mutually reinforcement and that both can be present with or without the other.
What to do?
So, if we disregard exaggerated use of solariums and the application of tons of foundation, what is the tactic for conquering blushing? Well, the symptom can be dealt with on multiple levels. Since it is a bodily response to stress that shoots blood through the body in the first place, meditation and breathing exercises can be useful to achieve a lower heart rate, i.e. calm yourself down.
If the problem stems from a social fear of other people’s judgement or dislike of your personality (which is often the case), then the only way to minimize flushing is to deal with the causes for your insecurity. I stumbled across two golden advices: A) instead of letting the blush freak you out in social situations, try to just embrace it and say “I am going to show everyone how much I can blush”, and B) remember that you are not the center of other people’s universe. Both tend to reduce how much blushing will control your life.
However, a reference from your own doctor to a skin doctor can provide you with some helpful remedies. My skin doctor provided me with propranolol, which lowers the heath rhythm and slows down the blood flow and zinc crème that calms down irritated and sensitive skin. Baldrian drops helps the body to chill more as well.
In my view, these tools must however go hand in hand with an acceptance of your blushing and the well-known phrase that only imperfection can be perfect.
