It goes without saying that we can all benefit in a variety of ways by engaging in a bit of daily exercise. It helps keep our hearts strong, our muscles tone, our weight down, and our spirits up. But did you know that by getting plenty of quality exercise, we are also able to enjoy clean, clear, radiant skin?

The following is a list of 3 ways that exercise helps us maintain great skin:

1. It removes harmful toxins from our bodies. One of the greatest ways to get rid of harmful, skin-damaging toxins from the body is through respiration. When we breathe heavily, our lymphatic system circulates and we draw toxic gasses out of our vital organs and fat cells. We then exhale these toxins out of our bodies and begin to free ourselves from them. And you’ll never guess the other primary way that exercise helps us remove toxins. It’s through our sweat glands! This is a double whammy for those pimple-causing toxins.

2. Exercise promotes healthy blood flow. Our blood is the river of life that keeps all things our bodies need being delivered in a timely fashion. It also grabs all the things we don’t need, which are generally really bad for us, and takes them where they need to go to be properly eliminated. The more efficiently this occurs, the less likely it is that toxic residues will end up being “trapped” in all the wrong places. Through proper exercise, the heart makes sure that the blood does its job as efficiently as possible.

3. It helps to reduce stress. One of the most significant contributors to bad skin and breakouts is a group of stress hormones that just throw your whole physiology out of whack. Not allowing these stress hormones to grow out of control is essential for maintaining healthy, blemish-free skin. Sufficient exercise keeps these hormones in check.

As you can see, exercise helps us to enjoy far healthier skin in a number of ways. Primarily, it helps our bodies eliminate acne-causing toxins by activating our respiratory, circulatory, and lymphatic systems. It keeps our blood oxygenated and it directly helps us unclog our pours by way of our sweat glands. Aside from a pure, clean diet, nothing will work to eliminate skin problems and prevent them from recurring quite like exercise will.