Throughout a person’s life, at one point or another, they will most likely deal with the most common skin disorder, acne. Predominantly, acne affects people undergoing puberty in middle school and high school. Acne is also one of the most annoying things the body creates naturally. For most people, acne is an insecurity and an embarrassment, but there are some upsides to having these “little friends” on your face.

An upside to having pimples is being able to look forward to something in the future and to be more accepting. Acne can teach you to be more loving of your body and to be more positive because every cloud has a silver lining. After your puberty days have passed, your skin will be healthy without the hormones telling you otherwise.  Learning to love yourself just the way you are helps you blossom into a mature young adult.

Furthermore, acne also protects your skin from the sun’s harmful UV rays. The pimples on the surface of your skin act like sunscreen and they absorb the UV rays before entering your system. Pimples have a protein called RoxP which protects your skin from the UV rays and it reduces the risk of skin cancer and psoriasis. These little pests turn out to be your little guards in disguise.

On the other hand, acne can actually help you prevent wrinkling and aging when the time comes. White blood cells in acne have longer telomeres which means that it protects the person from aging, slowing it down dramatically. The longer the length of the telomere, the better it protects the cell. Another silver lining in the cloud, acne is a lifesaver in people’s lives.

Subsequently, acne can teach you to have perseverance and patience for life. Acne will persist and become a nuisance, but you have to accept that and work with it. Also, acne teaches you to persevere because you have to wash your face daily to speed up the reaction of it disappearing. Struggling with acne in the past, but still gets random breakouts, Maddie Cusick (9) assures, “acne gets better in the end if you wash your face and stay patient with your skin.”

Acne was never a bad thing in life, but it has been misunderstood. Even though acne does cause redness, pain, and is cosmetically unappealing, surprisingly, it creates some positive outcomes. Do not stop being patient with your skin because in the end, acne is a lifesaver in disguise.