Stressed about an inbox jammed full and ready to dump your email address and start fresh? We get it! But before going through that, there are solutions to lessen the burden of an overflowing inbox. What if we told you that the state of your looks and your inbox could be connected? If a constant influx of emails has you in a panic, that stress and anxiety can take a toll on your mind and body, with telltale signs showing up on your skin. Stay tuned for tips on how to manage your inbox effectively and have clear, calm, crease-free skin to show for it!

Be Grateful for Email
If you have an email count in the thousands, you might be hard-pressed to feel grateful for electronic mail. But your inbox is the last thing that should be causing you to pull your hair out. Remember, this advancement in technology enables us to stay connected with people (or stores!) that we can’t physically see daily. We have the luxury of sending, receiving, reading, and discarding emails without leaving the sofa, facilitating back-and-forth communication across the globe at the touch of a button. This next-to-instant communication is a far cry from what our grandparents had to go through to send and receive their mail, not to mention the long, agonizing wait times between messages!  We really don’t have it “so bad,” but it does require a little strategy to manage your inbox well!

Unsubscribe to Email Denial
You can ignore that red dot, bubble, or message signaling an ever-growing number of emails, but what’s the cost of a full mailbox? Your serenity, your connectedness, and your responsiveness. Overflowing inbox denial comes with multiple stress-filled, time-sucking downsides, like wasting endless, frustrating hours searching for that message about the thing-a-ma-jig you need to send to whose-it. You may also miss emails from people or brands you need and want to hear from, including emails from us about how to care for your skin, body, and hair! When this happens, the technology designed for efficiency and expediency no longer serves its intended purpose.

Although it may require exceptional agility to sidestep piles of clutter (you would never let that much mail stack up, right?), digital mail seems like a different picture.But is it? Clutter is proven to skyrocket stress hormone levels and anxiety, and a full inbox isn’t that different. Like a tidy home, which can lower cortisol levels and boost focus, moods, and productivity, a tidy inbox will also help calm your mind and promote the wellness that goes with it! Ask yourself why you are holding onto all those emails. Many of us worry about not retaining information we may need in the foreseeable future. A little information hoarding at work is okay, as you may actually need it to do your job. Otherwise, most of the information in emails is an internet search away. If it is indeed something you can’t live without, create folders to file emails for easy access. However, if they have sentimental value, you can save them to an external hard drive instead for safekeeping. If you want to stay stress-free, connected, and informed, it is time to accept that your inbox won’t clean itself out and find a solution that works for you.

Your Inbox and Your Skin
If you need a little more motivation to get started, perhaps the toll your stress, anxiety, and depression are taking on your skin will be all the ammunition you need. Stress triggers our fight-or-flight response and an influx of stress hormones, which lead to inflammation and oxidation. This can cause breakouts, rosacea flare-ups, hyperpigmentation, and hair loss, plus hasten the appearance of early signs of aging. Here’s how:

1. The surge in stress hormones (adrenaline, cortisol, and testosterone) boosts our heart rate and immune system, enabling us to “flee” from the perceived danger. However, it dampens non-essential biological functions, wreaking havoc on our skin and hair.
2. Adrenaline, testosterone, and cortisol cause a surge in oil production, clogging pores and creating an environment that the bacteria tied to acne love, leading to breakouts. Adrenaline (epinephrine) is also a blood vessel regulating neurotransmitter thought to be depleted by excess stress, further aggravating hormonal imbalances.
3. Cortisol, an adrenal steroid hormone, normally buffers stress by signaling the immune system to protect and prevent inflammatory substances from being released. But it cannot do so with chronic stress-inducing factors like a constantly maxed-out inbox.

Chronic stress causes the immune cells to be insensitive to cortisol’s effects, negatively affecting the circulatory and nervous systems. Blood sugar levels increase, causing glycation (when excess sugars bind with collagen and elastin), impeding circulation. Over time, proteins break down, and the immune system weakens, causing an inflammatory response, resulting in a dull, flaky, haggard complexion, plus breakouts or rosacea flare-ups.

1. Stress also causes the hypothalamus to secrete CRH (corticotropin-releasing hormone), which dilates blood vessels, inflames, heats, and sensitizes the skin. This aggravates existing skin disorders like rosacea or acne and can trigger new ones.
2. The demodex folliculorum mite associated with rosacea also enjoys the oil-rich environment created by stress. The acidic nature of stress hormones causes facial flushing and blushing seen with rosacea and impacts other skin disorders.

Now, are you motivated to get a handle on your inbox stress?

Tackle Your Email Head On
With consistent management and care, your inbox doesn’t have to be a problem. Unsure how to cut down on your emails? Everyone has personal tricks for how they manage their email, but here are just a few methods experts recommend to preserve your emotional and mental wellness…and your appearance:

1. Protect yourself: Before you get started, use a screen-safe towel or wipe to clean your keyboard and phone—breeding grounds for bacteria. Then, apply a broad-spectrum sunscreen with bluelight protection to shield your skin from the high-energy visible (HEV) light so you won’t incur more skin damage while slimming down your inbox.
2. Stay calm: If your jaw clenches at the mere thought of tackling your inbox, remember you don’t have to do it in a single day. It took days, months, or years to accumulate your impressive email count, and it will take some time to whittle it down.

Break it down into bite-size pieces to help avoid feeling overwhelmed. Light a soothing candle and dab a de-stressing aromatherapy face oil onto your jaw and temples before you open your email account for extra calming support. Then, take a few deep breaths and let the sorting begin!

1. Unsubscribe: Take back control over your inbox by opting out of getting emails from legitimate senders whose product or information you no longer want. Don't worry; you don’t have to say goodbye to your favorite clean beauty brand. Many companies allow you to be selective about the types of emails you wish to receive and have the option to reduce email frequency. This way, you can stay in the loop with important offers or educational newsletters that matter to you!
2. Block it: You can also block messages from certain senders, which will go to spam—out of sight, out of mind—until you empty your spam folder.
3. Delete spam: Not all unsubscribe links are safe. It is better to delete spam than click unsubscribe for something you didn’t subscribe to. Doing so may inform the sender that your email is active, and once they see that a real person read it, they may share your address with other spammers.
4. Filter it: Set up filters that will automatically sort your incoming emails. You can select the criteria and rules you want and weed out what you don’t. This can include sender, recipient, subject, words, size, and date.
5. Be discerning: Guard your email as precious. Moving forward, being careful who you give your email address to will help with maintaining your new, manageable inbox.
6. Control your notifications: Wondering how to check your inbox on your terms? Silencing or eliminating email notifications is an excellent method. You can set a rule about which emails you want to be notified about and which you don’t. Selecting “high priority only” under notifications settings will allow you to keep receiving essential emails and silence notifications for non-essential ones.

Notifications for apps, texts, and the like are equally disruptive to serenity. You can decline invitations for notifications for apps you know you won't use or silence those from text messages, messenger, etc., that you can check on your schedule.

1. Hit Snooze: Not ready to hit delete on some emails? In Gmail, you can temporarily snooze an email and dictate when you want it to come back to your inbox later, when you can review it and take action. Just don’t hit snooze too many times and make yourself late to “the party.” Be mindful and manage regular senders’ expectations about your average reply time and hold yourself accountable.
2. Archive it: Archive emails that you want to keep but don't need front and center, clogging up your inbox. It may seem like the email will be lost forever, but rest assured, you will be able to search for it and access it later.  
3. Manage your time: Believe it or not, you don’t have to reply to an email the minute it comes in. Nor does every ad-based email command that you open it to “just see.” Instead, establish a dedicated time to consciously manage your inbox and avoid feeling overwhelmed.

If you discover an email requires more attention than you can muster, use the snooze feature to allow yourself the grace to deal with it when you can. If that means you read emails after hours, you can schedule your replies to hit the sender’s inbox at a reasonable time (just in case they fail to silence their notifications)! If you are a multi-tasker like us, after washing your face, put on one of our clean skincare face masks to de-clog and declutter your inbox at the same time.

1. Take a break: Step away from your inbox periodically to give yourself a mental break and reduce stress. Should the posture you assume when fending off the email avalanche cause tightness in your shoulders and hips, or your neck gets sore from staring at your screen, take a moment to massage someMarine Magnesium andTension Relief Gel onto the areas that hurt to relieve muscle tension and discomfort.
2. Power down: Power down devices well before bedtime, as blue light can disturb a good night's sleep and negatively affect your skin.

When you accomplish your goal, visit Find A Spa to reward yourself with a relaxing Pevonia facial, body treatment, or massage. A clean inbox is commendable and can give you a much-needed mental reprieve that can improve your skin. However, you need to maintain both by staying consistent with the above practices and using our clean skincare products!