Sleep skin: Beauty sleep: Is it real?
Beauty sleep: Is it real?
You can almost immediately tell that getting a poor night of sleep doesn’t do woke-up-like-this wonders for your face. Older 2013 research even says that one night of poor sleep can cause:
- hanging eyelids
- swollen eyes
- darker undereye circles
- paler skin
- more wrinkles and fine lines
- more droopy corners of the mouth
A 2017 study found that two days of sleep restriction negatively affected participants’ perceived attractiveness, health, sleepiness, and trustworthiness.
So, what seems like an overnight issue could transform into something more permanent.
First and foremost, you should understand that sleep is the time when your body repairs itself. This is true for your epidermis as much as it is for your brain or muscles.
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.
Second, sleep is when your face inevitably comes into contact with the elements directly around it for a long time, especially if you’re getting the recommended seven to nine hours each night.
Think about it: Your face against rough, drying cotton for one-third of its existence and being exposed to the sun for two unprotected hours could do a number on the appearance and health of your skin.
Here’s what you can do to help give your skin a rest.
1. Get a full night of sleep
The best place to start for your skin — and overall health — is to get the recommended amount of rest each night.
The results of poor sleep for your skin include:
- skin that ages faster
- skin that doesn’t recover as well from environmental stressors like sun exposure
- less satisfaction with your skin quality
Sometimes you might have an off day, but you should average seven to nine hours of sleep. If you’re wondering how to reset your internal clock and catch up on rest, try sleeping in on the weekends by following our three-day fix guide.
You can also track your sleep with a wearable fitness tracker.
2. Wash your face before turning in
We’ve established how sleeping is a surefire way to help your skin repair itself: blood flow increases, collagen is rebuilt, and the muscles in your face relax after a long day.
But going to sleep with a dirty face can also harm the appearance of your skin.
Cleansing your face each night is arguably more important than in the morning — you don’t need to use fancy products or scrub too hard. A gentle cleanser to remove dirt, makeup, and extra oil will do the trick.
You don’t want to give the day’s pore-clogging irritants the chance to sink in and cause damage overnight. This can cause:
- large pores
- dry skin
- rashes
- infections
- inflammation
- acne outbreaks
3. Use an overnight moisturizer and stay hydrated
Washing your face can dry it out, and sleeping can also dehydrate skin, especially if you snooze in a low-humidity environment. While staying hydrated by drinking water can help to some extent, what your skin really needs at night is a topical moisturizer.
Again, you don’t need the fanciest product on the market. You just need a thicker cream or oil that can help your skin as you sleep.
Another option is to use your day moisturizer and layer petroleum jelly — using clean hands — on top to lock in the moisturizer.
For a more supercharged product, try an overnight sleeping mask.
4. Sleep on your back or use a special pillowcase
It makes sense that the position your face is in while you sleep (for one-third of your day!) matters to your skin.
Sleeping on a rough cotton surface can irritate your skin and compress your face for long hours at a time, resulting in wrinkles. While most wrinkles are caused by the expressions we make while we’re awake, wrinkles on the face and chest can result from sleeping on our stomachs or sides.
An easy solution to this is sleeping on your back — which also has a few other benefits — even if you train yourself over time.
If you prefer to sleep on your side, get a skin-friendly pillow. A satin or silk pillow minimizes skin irritation and compression, while copper-oxide pillowcases may reduce crow’s feet and other fine lines.
5. Elevate your head
Elevating your head has been proven to help with snoring, acid reflux, and nasal drip — all issues that can disturb the quality of your sleep and, therefore, your skin. In addition, it can help reduce bags and circles under your eyes by improving blood flow and preventing blood from pooling.
Elevating your head while you sleep can be as simple as adding an extra pillow, a wedge to your mattress, or even propping the head of your bed by a few inches.
6. Stay away from sun while you snooze
While we do most of our sleeping in the dark, sleeping with your skin directly exposed to the sun in the morning, or during naps, can have a damaging effect on your skin’s health and appearance — not to mention that sleeping in a lighted room can disturb sleep and sleep rhythms.
Getting blackout curtains or making sure that your bed is out of the sun’s direct line can help.
While we often spend a lot of our time layering and lasering our skin, paying attention to how we treat our skin during sleeping hours shouldn’t be overlooked.
It’s not just for a glow or looking youthful; it’s about maintaining your health in body, mind, and skin for years to come. A few wrinkles never hurt anyone — in fact, they’re usually a sign of happy years lived.
5 Steps to Sleep Your Way to Healthier, Brighter Skin
The connection between ample, good-quality sleep and healthy skin is undeniable. Here are five strategies to maximize your snooze time for a healthier, more youthful complexion.
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Is your pillowcase accelerating signs of aging?Stocksy
Getting a good night’s rest is critical for your overall health and well-being, but it also turns out there’s some scientific truth to the notion of beauty sleep. “Our skin rests and repairs itself while we sleep,” says Francesca Fusco, MD, a dermatologist and assistant clinical professor of dermatology at Mount Sinai in New York City.
“With no UV [ultraviolet] exposure and no dynamic facial muscles contracting, it’s the best time of day for skin.”
Dr. Anna Persaud, PhD, sleep expert and CEO of ThisWorks, a beauty and wellness product brand, agrees. “Overnight, skin goes into repair and restore mode, meaning it removes toxins, repairs cell and DNA damage caused by the environment, replaces aging cells, and creates new ones. That’s why after good-quality sleep, skin looks fresher, younger, and more radiant.” According to the National Sleep Foundation, adults need seven to nine hours of sleep per night.
If you try to cut down on the amount of sleep your body needs to function at its best, your skin will show it. “Then, overnight repair is compromised and we quickly see the impact of this, for example in the appearance of dark circles under our eyes, changes in skin texture, dry skin, and the onset of fine lines and wrinkles,” adds Dr. Persaud.
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And when you’re looking at the snooze-specific bodily functions, it’s important to keep in mind a few hormones produced, particularly cortisol.
“Cortisol levels decrease while we sleep, so if you don’t sleep then cortisol levels will remain high,” says Joshua Zeichner, MD, head of clinical and cosmetic dermatology at Mount Sinai hospital in New York City. “This may interfere with wound healing, promote early aging, and even lead to acne flares.” A review published in June 2014 in the journal Inflammation & Allergy Drug Targets even suggested that elevated cortisol levels — that are directly associated with stress — can lead to a greater risk of the skin condition psoriasis and slow wound healing time by a whopping 20 percent.
Also important to note, says Dr. Zeichner, is that traditionally, “cell turnover and likely collagen production increases in the evening.” So by the same token, when sleep is compromised, so is cell turnover and collagen production, which helps skin feel firmer and the complexion to have a plumper, more youthful look. As past research has pointed out, collagen production decreases with age.
But there are ways to maximize your seven to nine hours of shut-eye to help your skin reach its healthiest — we turned to the experts to steal their secrets.
1. Reach for an Overnight Moisturizer With Hyaluronic Acid
It’s imperative to develop a skin-care routine that focuses on moisturizing and regenerating skin. These aspects are integral to helping slow the signs of aging, says Persaud. Hyaluronic acid, she says, “helps to bind water to skin cells.” Translation: This ingredient is the key to attaining a dewy, healthy glow.
Zeichner agrees, noting that the superstar ingredient “is a humectant, which means that it pulls in water to hydrate the skin — in fact, it can hold 1,000 times its weight in water.” That makes it a great ingredient to apply before bed, when your skin is at its driest.
RELATED: 10 Things Your Skin Is Trying to Tell You — and How to Respond
2. Choose High-Thread-Count Cotton Sheets (or Splurge on Silk Pillowcases)
“It has been well documented that softer sheets may have skin aging benefits,” says Zeichner.
“As the skin wraps against your sheets, there are frictional forces that may lead to folding and wrinkling of the skin.” Although you have a wide range of sheets at your disposal, those with a thread count of 200 to 800 are considered good, with some occasionally topping 1,000. Rule of thumb: The higher, the better. And if you really want to splurge, try a silk pillowcase, which will provide the most slip between your skin and the bedding.
3. Use Products With Vitamin C or Vitamin A, Which Can Help Rev Collagen Production
“Vitamin C also helps supports collagen production, so try applying topically,” says Persaud, who also recommends taking a vitamin C supplement to help boost collagen levels as well. Vitamin C may be listed on your skin-care product ingredient label as one of the following: L-ascorbic acid, sodium ascorbyl phosphate, ascorbyl palmitate, or retinyl ascorbate.
As a plus, early studies suggest vitamin C’s antioxidant properties may help reverse any damage the sun has imposed on your skin during the day, notes the American Academy of Dermatology, making this ingredient a win all around.
Vitamin A, on the other hand, can help minimize pore size, clear acne-prone skin, and firm dull, sagging skin by boosting collagen production, according to past research. Harvard Health Publishing notes that sunlight inactivates retinoids, increasing the skin’s sensitivity to harmful UV rays, so dermatologists agree using them at bedtime is best. The topical form of vitamin A is a retinoid, and you can find various retinoid creams with a prescription, at your local drugstore or wherever you like to buy your beauty products.
4. Place a Humidifier on Your Nightstand Before Hitting the Sack
There’s no question that sleep can dry out skin. “When we wake, our skin is at its most dehydrated. This is due to overnight transepidermal water loss,” says Persaud. Transepidermal water loss happens when h3O evaporates from the skin’s surface, also known as the epidermis, per past research. While swilling water during the day is crucial for avoiding dehydration and optimizing your overall health, Dr.
Fusco says the best way to mitigate losing any moisture from dry sleep spaces is to employ the aid of a humidifier.
RELATED: 5 Nighttime Skin-Care Mistakes That Are Sabotaging Your Beauty Goals
5. Sleep on Your Back, Not Your Side, if You Can Help It
Snoozing in this position prevents your face from rubbing up against the pillow, which can help keep your skin looking smooth. “For those who sleep on their front, fluid can pool, which can lead to temporary swelling, possibly emphasizing under eye bags,” says Persaud. “People who sleep on their sides are likely to notice ‘sleep lines’ on the side that they sleep on.”
But Fusco adds that “with the right pillow and elevation of the head, fluid accumulation and puffiness can be corrected.”
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Sleeping Beauty. How to take care of your skin at night? | Beauty secrets | Health
Anna Shatokhina,
Lilia Dyshlevaya
Approximate reading time: 4 minutes
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Story It’s good to be healthy
Shutterstock.com
Night time is the best time to carry out high-quality facial skin care. After all, the night is the time of recovery of the body.
How and what should be used in the evening and at night, so that in the morning the reflection will please with freshness and beauty?
According to dermatocosmetologist Liliya Dyshlevaya , night skin care usually includes three basic steps:
— cleansing;
– toning;
– leaving.
And each of them is extremely important, you should not miss it.
Cleansing is one of the most important steps, as it allows you to remove traces of makeup and impurities accumulated during the day from the skin of the face. “In addition, the stratum corneum is removed from the surface of the skin, which opens access to nourishing and moisturizing components from creams and other care products. To cleanse the skin, such products as washing gels, foams, micellar water, hydrophilic oil, milk are traditionally used, ”says Lilia Dyshlevaya.
How to choose a product? The main factor is the type of skin, the specialist notes. “If you apply heavy makeup on your face, then it is acceptable to first use makeup remover (lotion, micellar water) and only then wash with a gel according to your skin type.
The same approach can be applied to oily skin care. But dry skin can be cleaned with milk or micellar water, while we must not forget that the remains of micellar water must be washed off either with tap water or tonic, ”warns dermatocosmetologist Dyshlevaya.
Toning is an equally important stage of skin care, which helps to enhance the penetration of active ingredients from creams, evens out the pH of the skin, soothes, relieves the feeling of tightness, irritation, etc. “Skip this stage, believing that your skin does not need it , wrong. Since it is the tonic that evens out and smoothes the surface of the skin, ”says Lilia Dyshlevaya.
Choose your toner in the same way as your cleanser, according to your skin type and concerns. “Today, tonics can be saturated with active ingredients such as glycolic acid in small proportions. Such a tool, in addition to care, will contribute to skin exfoliation, its rejuvenation and better penetration of nourishing and moisturizing components, ”says the dermatocosmetologist.
Care should be taken with tonics based on alcohol – they are usually loved by owners of oily and problem skin. “I must say right away that this is not the best option for caring for this type of skin, as it can greatly dry out the skin and lead to increased sensitivity. It is better to replace the alcohol tonic with a tonic with AHA acids or salicylic acid – there will be antiseptic properties and control over the release of sebum, ”advises Lilia Dyshlevaya.
Skin care is also carried out according to skin type and problem. “We start using the cream at night conditionally from 25+. Evening time is a great way to bring active ingredients into care that will help improve skin quality, rejuvenate and solve some other additional tasks, ”the specialist warns.
For summer night care, you can choose a cream with a light nourishing effect (skin needs nourishment anyway), a moisturizing cream, or prefer more specific care (lifting, rejuvenation, wrinkle control). Even in the warm season, it is permissible to use serums with vitamins at night (do not forget that serums are applied strictly under the cream, immediately after the tonic) – for example, vitamin C is absolutely safe in the warm season, however, you still should not forget about the cream with SPF morning, says the doctor.
Vitamin C is an antioxidant, promotes rejuvenation, has a slight whitening effect, tightens pores, fights the manifestations of rosacea and pigmentation and fine wrinkles, improves skin condition. “Cosmetics with vitamins is applied in courses – 1-2 months. Then you can give your skin a little “rest” and start using serums with more saturated formulas in the fall: retinol, glycolic acid, etc. Also in the summer, creams with the addition of collagen and hyaluronic acid are welcome, since it is these components that suffer from exposure sunlight, and they are responsible for high-quality skin hydration, ”summarizes Lilia Dyshlevaya.
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5 products that work for your skin while you sleep
There is nothing wrong with simple skin care when you consistently moisturize and cleanse it, but if you want to achieve great results with minimal investment of time and money, then you should consider night care.
We will tell you which nightly products will transform your skin.
Benefits of night products
Night products (creams, masks, serums) come in a variety of formulations and are designed to address a wide range of skin concerns, from dryness to age-related signs of skin changes. They contain nourishing, moisturizing and regenerating ingredients that penetrate into the deep layers of the epidermis.
Night formulations also take advantage of your skin’s increased ability to absorb ingredients at night. Your body works on a cycle regulated by various hormones, including melatonin, the sleep hormone. Just as the production of melatonin increases at night, causing drowsiness, your skin is maximally “open” to the perception of substances. In addition, the skin loses moisture at night, so the use of moisturizers is useful to eliminate the risk of dryness in the morning.
Try These 5 Yon-ka Paris Night Treatments
Be sure to thoroughly cleanse your skin of make-up and other impurities that have accumulated during the day before applying your night products.
1) Elastine Nuit Night Cream
This rejuvenating night cream is infused with petites, antioxidant vitamins and nourishing amino acids that support the skin’s natural defenses against aging. You are provided with the effect of eliminating wrinkles and restoring skin damage.
2) Time Resist Creme Nuit Night Cream
A velvety anti-aging cream with 90% ingredients of natural origin, contains a complex of ingredients that activate youth and eliminate visible signs of aging, namely a synergistic complex of plant stem cells, grape seed oil, extract wakame and shea butter, which soothe, nourish and regenerate the skin, restoring its youthfulness and smoothness.
3) Phyto Cream 58 PS/PNG
Regenerating night cream for dry and sensitive skin perfectly moisturizes and revitalizes it during the night. Formulated with sweet almond oil and 3% antiseptic rosemary oil to provide a draining effect to help revitalize tired skin and tighten pores.
4) Phyto 52 Cream
It strengthens, detoxifies and refreshes the skin.