Is Beauty Sleep a Real Thing?

Sleep is something most Americans don’t prioritize nearly enough. And while it’s easy to feel the immediate effect a lack of sleep has on o...

Sleep is something most Americans don’t prioritize nearly enough. And while it’s easy to feel the immediate effect a lack of sleep has on our energy levels and focus, the other side effects often go ignored.

For example, did you know that sleep and beauty are correlated?

The Correlation between Sleep and Beauty

We’ve all had a moment where we looked at ourselves in the mirror after a poor night of sleep and thought, “Wow, that’s rough!” Hanging eyelids, dark undereye circles, pale skin, wrinkles, droopy corners of the mouth – nothing seems quite right after a night of poor sleep. And all it takes is a couple of nights of bad sleep to set these wheels into motion.

According to one study, just two days of sleep restriction is shown to negatively impact an individual’s perceived attractiveness and health. So you can just imagine what a chronic lack of sleep will do to you.

The correlation between sleep and beauty is directly tied to the role sleep plays in the process of repairing your body – particularly your epidermis.

“During sleep, your skin’s blood flow increases, and the organ rebuilds its collagen and repairs damage from UV exposure, reducing wrinkles and age spots,” Healthline explains.

Additionally, during sleep, there’s a prolonged period of time where your face comes into contact with other elements (e.g. the pillowcase). If sleep isn’t properly optimized, then this could have a negative impact on your overall appearance.

If you’re getting less than six hours of sleep per night, it’s most likely having a negative impact on your appearance. If you’re getting six to seven, it’s most likely having a neutral impact. But if you can get seven to nine hours of quality sleep each night, you’ll start to notice a positive impact within as little as two to three weeks.

Benefits include fewer wrinkles, a glowing complexion, brighter/less puffy eyes, healthier/fuller air, happier/healthier appearance, and skin that’s more receptive to the benefits of skin and beauty products.

3 Tips for Better (Beauty) Sleep

Getting seven to nine hours of beauty sleep might sound great in theory, but how do you actually do it? The first step is to optimize your schedule and responsibilities so that you have the time carved out to get sleep. The second step is to give your mind and body what it needs to fall asleep and stay asleep. Here are some tips:

1. Kill the Blue Light

Light plays a key role in sleep. Your body has its own natural time-keeping clock (known as circadian rhythm) and different levels of bright light exposure throughout the day impact your body by telling it when to stay awake and when to fall asleep.

Natural sunlight during the day tell your body to stay alert and awake. Then as the light fades, your body gets the cue that it’s time to unwind and fall asleep. For most of history (before the industrial age), this was a pretty simple concept. You stayed awake during the day and went to sleep when it was dark. Today, electricity and screens have challenged this idea.

If, like most people, you use lots of screens at night (including TVs, tablets, smartphones, computers, etc.), you’re actually exposing your body to blue light at a time when it should be winding down. You’re inadvertently suppressing the natural secretion of melatonin into your body (which helps you relax and get deep sleep).

If you want to fall asleep at night without difficulty, you must reduce your blue light exposure. The best way to do this is to avoid all screens at least two hours prior to bedtime. But if you find this too difficult, you can wear glasses that block blue light and/or install different apps that are designed to modulate blue light levels on your screens so that they’re less impactful.

2. Relax Your Mind

The second step is to relax your mind. So instead of watching TV or scrolling through social media on your phone, you should engage in activities that put your mind at ease and help it fall asleep. For example:

• Try using crystal singing bowls, which offer a number of unique health benefits. In particular, they’re known for lowering brainwaves to alpha or theta states, which reduces stress and improves sleep quality.

• Can’t fall asleep? Try using meditation to calm your mind, lower your heart rate, and encourage slower breathing.

3. Optimize Your Sleep Environment

The final tip is to optimize your sleep environment so that it’s conducive to restorative sleep. Best practices include:

• Keep the room totally dark (using blackout curtains if necessary).
• Remove all noises and distractions (using a white noise machine if necessary).
• Keep the temperature between 65 to 67 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Ensure you have a firm mattress that properly cradles your body.

Get the Most Out of Your Sleep

It’s time that we stop relegating sleep to secondary importance. Rather than seeing it as a weakness, we should start seeing it for what it is: A key factor in our physical and emotional well-being.

By getting more out of sleep, we not only wake up refreshed and focused, but we also get out of bed looking more beautiful!