What causes terrible acne breakouts? How does it all work? With a condition like acne and pimples unfortunately the answer is not that simple.

You see, acne is a condition of the skin and your skin is literally your body's shield to the outside world. It gets exposed to so much that it's rather simplistic to believe that all acne is caused by the same thing. It's even wrong to think that separate acne outbreaks in the same individual are caused by the same thing.

The fact of the matter is that there is not just one specific cause of acne.

So what I'm going to expose the top 5 acne triggers and how they work.

1) Facial cleansing

As strange as it may sound, overzealously cleaning your face can actually contribute to your outbreak of acne. What happens is that scrubbing your face so hard can actually stimulate the
sebaceous glands to produce more sebum. Sebum is the oily/waxy substance that builds up in your pores and when combined with dirt and dead skin cells leads to annoying pimples, zits, whiteheads and blackheads.

So as you can probably guess you want to minimize the amount of sebum that your body creates.

What you should be doing is gently washing your face twice a day. Twice a day of gentle washing should be enough. Now the key is to wash gently not scrub. Hard scrubbing makes the problem worse.

2) Certain medications

You may not be aware but some medications that are used to treat asthma and thyroid problems as
well as medications used to treat convulsions and depression can actually trigger your sebaceous glands to produce too overproduce sebum and cause acne breakouts.

Make sure when you see a dermatologist you provide them with a complete list of the medications you're taking. This can go a long way toward preventing any potential acne causing problems.

3) Cosmetics

If you are a female who uses make up on your face, there are a number of ways you could be triggering your acne outbreaks. A common problem is improperly removing your cosmetics at night before you go to bed. Any lingering dirt can clog up your pores contributing to pimple production.

Another thing to watch out for are any products you're using that may be drying out your skin. When you dry out your skin what ends up happening is it triggers the production of more sebum.

The key overcoming acne is to get yourself educated on how different brands of cosmetics will affect your skin

4) Stress

If you are under a lot of stress, perhaps due to school, work or personal relationships this can all by itself make your acne breakouts worse. What happens is that when you're stressed out your body produces a hormone called cortisol. And guess what cortisol does? If you guessed produce more sebum, you guessed right.

A simple solution to too much stress is to try yoga or meditation. You'll probably find that as you find an outlet to relieve your stress you'll see you acne problems diminish significantly.

5) Vitamin deficiency

Often when we get consistent breakouts of pimples and zits we assume its because of something we're doing. But the funny thing is that more often the breakouts are caused by things that we're not doing. In particular, acne tends to be caused by a lack of certain key vitamins and nutrients.

Try adding zinc, Vitamins A, C and B6, chromium and selenium to your diet. You can do this either by eating foods rich in them or by using daily supplements.

So there you go keep these five acne triggers in mind when you see pimples begin to show up on your face and you'll be way ahead of the pack.