Staying safe and beautiful during the Circuit Breaker
Pandemics infamously happen nearly once a century. Most unfortunately, we are currently living in a modern-day pandemic of the SARSCoV-2 virus. Since the 7th of April, the lives of most Singaporeans have been in a figurative paused state. We have been staying at home, only going out to get food and distancing away from other human beings – how coincident that this is the year of the Rat.
Aesthetic clinics, being a non-essential medical service (some of my patients would argue otherwise), have to be closed during the Circuit Breaker period. On the day the Circuit Breaker was announced, I have received anxious messages from my patients asking me how they could maintain their skin without their regular monthly in-clinic treatments.
And I told them – to stay beautiful, first, you must stay safe, stay positive and stay healthy. Here is Part I on how you stay safe and beautiful during the Circuit Breaker:
Part 1: Mask up!
When outdoors
The first thing about wearing masks is wearing them correctly.
For surgical masks,
The water-repellent, coloured side (blue, green) faces outside while the absorbent, white side faces inside.
The top side of the mask has an embedded metal strip that is malleable to the shape of your nose; the bottom of the mask should be pulled to cover the chin fully.
Adjust the top side of the mask over the nose, shape the metallic strip over the nose and pull the bottom of the mask to fully cover the chin. This should give you adequate seal.
For reusable cloth masks (government issued),
There is no obvious inside or outside surfaces, so you will need to remember which side you have worn facing outside – mark it with a sticker, ribbon or permanent pen marking. You must remember this as the outward-facing surface will become the dirty side.
The bottom-middle side of the cloth mask has a narrowed stitch in the for the chin.
Ensure that the cloth mask is fitted properly by covering the nose and covering the entire lower face.
B. Secondly, thou shalt NOT do these:
Touching the outside surface is a no-no as it may be contaminated with viral particles. When wearing these masks, hold the elastic bands, stretch the mask over the face and loop the bands over the ears WITHOUT touching the outside surface of the mask. If you need to take the mask out, only touch the elastic bands.
Do not constantly touch the mask or the face. Discard safely the surgical mask if you have worn it outdoors. If you have the reusable cloth mask, remind yourself which side is the dirty side and when not wearing the mask, wash it immediately, only to reuse it when fully dried.
C. Sanitise, sanitise, sanitise.
Sanitise your hands before you take off the mask and sanitise it again after you have worn the mask.
If you have touched the outer surface of the mask by accident or when adjusting the mask, also remember to sanitise your hands again.
You must do all these and be compulsive at it. Only then, this will become second nature to you.
Mask up when at home
Masking at home, in the name of beauty, is easy. If you have previously stocked up on hydrating masks on your last trip to Gangnam, South Korea or from your friendly cosmetic shops, then it is time to use them.
This would be the best time to treat and pamper your skin, now that most of us are working from home and not wearing make-up.
Hydrating masks containing hyaluronic acid (HA), anti-oxidants and growth factors help the skin to recover its moisture.
There is no limit on how many times you apply these masks, but do not leave them on for longer than 20 minutes to avoid skin irritation.
Part 2: Ritualise These – Sanitise your hands, Treat your skin, Hydrate your skin-bed.
COVID-19 will have changed the way we live, here on in. Sanitising the hands (and masking up) will become part of everyone’s life – not just for Healthcare Workers and the Obsessive Compulsive (OCD).
As mentioned in Part I, we now must sanitise our hands before taking off the mask and sanitise it again after we have worn the mask. If you have touched the outer surface of the mask by accident or when adjusting the mask, also remember to sanitise your hands again.
We must do all these and be compulsive at it. Only then, this will become second nature to us.
The acronym WFH is now widely known – Working From Home allows us to work in the comfort of our home clothes and without having to put on make-up, for the ladies. Staying home means that we will get less sun exposure.
This is the best time for our skin to get rested, heal and rejuvenate on its own. Skin that has been rendered parched, inflamed and sensitive by drying and irritant nature of make-up can now breathe easy. For most of us, our skin would have improved within the first two weeks of Circuit Breaker.
My advice is to ritualise the cleansing the skin with mild cleansers, gently apply facial scrubs to exfoliate the dead skin, treat the skin with the appropriate serum – anti-oxidants, growth factors, hyaluronic acid, etc. and applying adequate sub protection.
Hyaluronic acid moisturising serum is my preferred one due to its hypo-allergenic and non-comedogenic (does not block pores) properties – it is most suitable in our humid climate.
If you have pigmentary problems like freckles and melasma, do continue to use depigmenting creams. For my patients, they will continue with their daily application of Cyspera. For the uninitiated, let me introduce you the cream that has become my first-line of treating pigmentations.
Cyspera is pigment-lightening cream derived from Cysteamine that works by reducing dark melanin (pigments) into a lighter form of pigment through blockage of enzymes in the melanin formation pathway and an anti-oxidant effect.
Cyspera is now my first line of pigment lightener because it is safer and has much lesser side effects e.g. redness and skin irritation than Hydroquinone, that is still commonly prescribed to lighten pigmentations.
Unlike Hydroquinone, Cyspera can be used indefinitely to lighten pigments and maintain its lightened state.
And what about sunblock – do I still have to wear it indoors? The answer is a yes, of course.
You can wear a lighter one, for example SPF30. You see, the skin-damaging UVA penetrates through windows and still can degrade collagen and put you at risk of skin cancer.
And if you do need to head outdoors for a quick grocery or food shopping trip, do apply two layers of sunblock i.e. 1 base coat, and then a second layer over the areas where your pigmentations are concentrated at (cheeks).
Part 3: Clear Mind + Healthy Body = Heavenly Skin
Thinking and living positively
We live now in strange times – I bet not many among us have lived through any sort of pandemics or natural calamities. It is a stressful time, not only because of the fear of the disease but its effect on our very own sanity, the society, the economy and the nation.
While most of us are able to adjust to significant changes, many of us may not realise how disorientating such situations can be and how much it may affect persons with living with anxiety, suicidal tendencies or paranoid schizophrenia – some may vent their maladjustments on social media or in their daily behaviour.
There is a very interesting piece of info-graphic that I have come across on Facebook – it outlines the different stages or ways we respond, how we should step back to see a wider and more emphatic view of things and finally on what we could do to live and view life more positively.
Some of the positive ways we could respond are:
Acknowledge, dissect and learn the following:
Our emotions and fears – turn the negatives into positives.
Things we can and cannot alter – adapt and adjust to these changes.
Being courteous and emphatic when commenting on social media – avoid turning yourself into an angry, monstrous keyboard warrior. Learn to walk away from commenting, if you can.
Instead, why not show empathy and appreciation to the contributions of our front liners like Healthcare Workers, delivery persons, foreign workers, etc.
Check and verify what we see and hear from others and from social media – there are many resources on line where we can find verified news.
For example:
The Ministry of Health - MOH.gov.sg/covid-19
Prime Minister’s Office - PMO.gov.sg
Channel News Asia - channelnewsasia.com
Conspiracy theories and inflammatory posts are best taken with a pinch of salt.
Rest your mind, body and soul
While we work from home and have Zoom meetings all day, or just binge on Netflix for hours, the computer screen emits blue light that can affect our sleep cycle and our weight, indirectly.
Blue light is of short wavelength and is neither UVA nor UVB – its main sources are from mobile/smartphones or digital devices, computer screens, LED display screens in our living rooms, and even the fluorescent light tubes from our ceilings.
Studies already show that excess blue light can affect our sleep by suppressing the secretion of melatonin. Light suppresses melatonin secretion – light in the early evening can reset our circadian clock to a “later schedule” while light in the early morning advances it.
We are sensitive to blue light where it has greater effect in shifting the circadian clock. Quite often, we find that the blue light emitted from our digital devices results in a longer time for us to fall asleep, have less REM sleep (where we dream) and are more alert before bedtime.
And of course, during the Circuit Breaker, we have much less motivation to put away our digital devices and so, we end up staying up later – this would delay our circadian clock further and we end up being more tired the next day.
Poor sleep due to circadian clock disruption is also associated with metabolic dysfunction and may lead to obesity. Certain circadian clock-related “fat” genes known as CLOCK genes are activated – activation of these genes result in dyslipidaemia , insulin resistance and obesity.
To avoid this, we have to be disciplined about our sleeping times, practice good sleep hygiene as well as our eating habits. During the Circuit Breaker, surely we have more leeway, try to sleep by midnight. Good sleep hygiene means treating the bed solely as a place to sleep – avoid binging on Netflix or working on the laptop in bed.
To reduce blue light emission on our digital devices, we can turn on the blue light filter on our phones. To do this:
On Apple iOS (version 9.3 or later):
Go to Settings --> Display & Brightness --> Enable True Tone
You can further refine this by enabling Night Shift – it is a feature that automatically adjusts the colour of the screen into a warmer shade using your device’s clock and geolocation. This feature also lessens digital eye strain and help limit the amount of blue light received by our eyes.
On Android (Android 7.1 or later):
Go to Settings --> Display --> Enable Blue Light Filter and Dark Mode
You can further refine these settings by customising the schedule for them to be enabled.
Exercise safely – increase your endorphins
We are very fortunate, here in Singapore, to be allowed to exercise outdoors during the Circuit Breaker. If you are jogging, running or cycling vigorously, you are even allowed to be exempted from wearing masks – but we have to do this in a safe way by following these precautions:
1. Safe distancing
Run alone and always bring a mask with you - store the mask in a Ziploc bag and keep this in your pocket; you may be exempted from wearing masks during strenuous exercises but having a mask with you at all time is a good precaution.
Keep a distance of at least 2m from the runner or cyclist in front of you.
There are studies about slipstream carrying droplets of the forerunner to the runner behind him or her – these are studies conducted in closed and controlled environment, so in the outdoors, these findings may not hold true as droplets will likely fall to the ground or get blown away from the runner behind by the wind.
Here is an article on TodayOnline that further supports my statement.
2. Smart scheduling
Exercise earlier in the day – at dawn, if you are an early bird; it is a lot cooler, less sunny and less crowded as well.
If you do so in the evenings, wear your sunblock, too!
3. Exercise in the comfort of your home!
If you are not comfortable to exercise in the outdoors, you can surely do that in the comfort of your own home.
High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) exercises, pilates and yoga are certainly good choices indoors.
There are so many instructional videos online now. Here are some good resources:
So, here you go – I hope you are able to inculcate a clear, positive and rested mind, and motivate yourself to exercise during the Circuit Breaker, all these will bring about healthier skin and an infectious glow (non-viral origin, of course).
This is quite a long article, so if you are reading this line - thank you very much! If you do have any questions, please do not hesitate to email me - the link is on the main page.
Until my next article, stay safe and stay vigilant.
Note: This article has previously been published on the Facebook Page of Q Aesthetics Clinic.