Immediately when a person sees dark circles forming around their eyes they diagnose it as coming from stress, staying up all night watching movies or staring at their computer all night trying to finish the report for their boss. In some cases dark circles can form under the eye area because of excessive stress and lack of sleep but most of the time, their not your fault!

Your probably wondering what in the world I’m talking about for the past few years, it’s been a common belief that if you don’t get your eight to ten hours of sleep, and your always to stressed out. Actually dark eye circles also known as raccoon eyes can have a number of causes.

What They Really Are

Dark eye circles are really the result of oxidizing hemoglobin. They begin in the capillaries, the tiny blood vessels protecting the skin around your eyes. Hemoglobin have dark blue-black components and when they leaky out they cause the dark area of your eye. So yes, raccoon eyes are the causes of leaky capillaries.

Dark eye circles can also be caused bruises. For instance, when something strong hits and traumatizes you blood immediately starts to leak out into the surrounding skin which causes bruising.

Different Causes of Dark Eye Circles

Heredity

Yes, dark eye circles can be something that just embedded in your genes. As we discussed before dark circles in most cases are blood vessels that can be seen through the skin and the most thinnest area of skin we have is around our eye area. When blood passes through the large veins closet to the skin it can produce a bluish, or blackish tint, and the more transparent your skin in, determined by your genes the darker the circles appear.

Medications

Raccoon eyes can also be the result of medication that you take that make your blood vessels dilate.

Allergies, Asthma, Eczema

Allergies that cause your eyes to itch bad, and water call definitely cause dark eye circles, especially if your constantly rubbing them. Eczema common in a lot of asthma patients causes skin irritation so it wouldn’t be a surprise to see dark circles forming under the eye area if you have it.

Diet

Yes, your diet can also play a leading role. If your diet lacks a lot of nutrients, especially mineral iron that can cause dark eye circles, especially if your anemic. The lack of iron means that there is not enough oxygen getting to the body tissues.

Medical Conditions

There are a number of ailments that cause darkening around the eye area. It can be:

* Poor blood circulation
* Extreme loss of water also known as dehydration
* Excessive melanin production around the eye area

Before you go beating yourself up for not taking better care of yourself, know that there are many causes of dark eye circles and that ninety percent of the time it’s not because you go to bed late. The good thing about it all though is that we are living in an age where there’s a bundle of working products and treatments that can help you with this problem. So don’t be discouraged, you can get rid of those raccoon eyes!