Does beauty sleep really make a difference? Discover the science behind the claims and learn practical tips to maximize your skin’s overnight rejuvenation.

The Science Behind Beauty Sleep

Sleep is a crucial time for your body to repair and rejuvenate, and this includes your skin. During sleep, your skin’s blood flow increases, allowing it to rebuild collagen and repair damage from UV exposure. This process helps reduce the appearance of wrinkles and age spots.

The Visible Effects of Poor Sleep

Studies have shown that even one night of poor sleep can lead to visible changes in your appearance, such as hanging eyelids, swollen eyes, darker undereye circles, paler skin, more wrinkles and fine lines, and droopier corners of the mouth. Prolonged sleep deprivation can also negatively affect perceived attractiveness, health, sleepiness, and trustworthiness.

Establishing a Healthy Sleep Routine

The key to achieving “beauty sleep” is to aim for the recommended 7-9 hours of sleep each night. This can help your skin recover from environmental stressors and reduce the signs of aging. If you’re having trouble sleeping, try adjusting your sleep schedule, using a wearable fitness tracker, and prioritizing quality rest on the weekends.

Nighttime Skin Care Routine

Washing your face before bed is crucial to remove dirt, makeup, and excess oil that can clog pores and cause skin issues overnight. Follow up with a nourishing moisturizer to keep your skin hydrated while you sleep. For an extra boost, try using an overnight sleeping mask or layering petroleum jelly over your regular moisturizer.

Sleeping Position and Pillowcase Materials

The position you sleep in and the material of your pillowcase can also impact your skin’s appearance. Sleeping on your back or using a satin or silk pillowcase can help minimize skin irritation and compression, reducing the appearance of wrinkles and fine lines.

Additional Tips for Optimizing Beauty Sleep

Elevating your head while you sleep can help reduce bags and circles under your eyes by improving blood flow and preventing pooling. Additionally, it’s important to avoid sleeping in direct sunlight, as this can have a damaging effect on your skin’s health and appearance.

Putting it All Together

By understanding the science behind beauty sleep and implementing practical tips, you can unlock the secrets to healthier, more radiant-looking skin. Remember, consistency is key – establishing a healthy sleep routine and nighttime skin care regimen can have a lasting impact on your skin’s appearance.

How can poor sleep affect the appearance of my skin?

Poor sleep can lead to a variety of visible changes in your skin, including hanging eyelids, swollen eyes, darker undereye circles, paler skin, more wrinkles and fine lines, and droopier corners of the mouth. Additionally, prolonged sleep deprivation can negatively affect perceived attractiveness, health, sleepiness, and trustworthiness.

How much sleep do I need for optimal skin health?

The recommended amount of sleep for optimal skin health is 7-9 hours per night. Consistently getting this amount of sleep can help your skin recover from environmental stressors and reduce the visible signs of aging.

What can I do to improve my nighttime skin care routine?

To optimize your nighttime skin care routine, be sure to wash your face before bed to remove dirt, makeup, and excess oil that can clog pores and cause issues overnight. Follow up with a nourishing moisturizer to keep your skin hydrated, and consider using an overnight sleeping mask or layering petroleum jelly over your regular moisturizer for an extra boost.

How can my sleeping position and pillowcase material affect my skin?

The position you sleep in and the material of your pillowcase can both impact your skin’s appearance. Sleeping on your back or using a satin or silk pillowcase can help minimize skin irritation and compression, reducing the appearance of wrinkles and fine lines.

What other tips can I use to optimize my beauty sleep?

In addition to establishing a healthy sleep routine and nighttime skin care regimen, you can also try elevating your head while you sleep to help reduce bags and circles under your eyes. It’s also important to avoid sleeping in direct sunlight, as this can have a damaging effect on your skin’s health and appearance.

How can I track my sleep to ensure I’m getting enough rest?

Using a wearable fitness tracker can be a helpful tool for tracking your sleep and ensuring you’re getting the recommended 7-9 hours per night. This can help you identify any sleep issues and make adjustments to your routine as needed.

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.

The Truth About Beauty Sleep

Written by Stephanie Jacob

When it comes to your beauty routine, sleep may be the closest thing there is to a fountain of youth. Your body repairs itself and recovers while you snooze, and that leads to a long list of benefits for your looks. The key is to get enough shut-eye — 7 to 9 quality hours each night.

If you’re getting fewer than 6 hours, it’s likely affecting your appearance, says Michael Breus, PhD, a board-certified sleep specialist. Start getting 1 to 3 more hours of Zzz’s, and you could see some improvement in as little as a day. Keep it up, and “within 2 to 3 weeks, people will notice that you’re sleeping better by the way you look,” Breus says.

Here are the six beauty benefits of getting enough rest.

Skin makes new collagen when you sleep, which prevents sagging. “That’s part of the repair process,” says Patricia Wexler, MD, a dermatologist in New York. More collagen means skin is plumper and less likely to wrinkle.

Only getting 5 hours a night can lead to twice as many fine lines as sleeping 7 would. It also leaves skin drier, which can make lines more visible, Wexler says.

Your body boosts blood flow to the skin while you snooze, which means you wake to a healthy glow. Skimp on sleep and your complexion can look drab, ashen, or lifeless.

“Sleep deprivation causes a decrease in blood flow to the skin surrounding your face,” Breus says. “Skin becomes dull, and you don’t get those rosy cheeks anymore.”

Chances are, you’ve had dark circles or bags under your eyes after a night of too few Zzz’s.

“Puffy eyes are one of the first things we see when we don’t sleep,” says Doris Day, MD, a clinical associate professor of dermatology at New York University Langone Medical Center. Get enough shut-eye and you’ll have less puffiness under your eyes

Stay well-hydrated and elevate your head with an extra pillow at night, too. That can also help reduce swelling.

Plenty of rest can also minimize dark circles. When blood isn’t flowing well — which happens when you’re low on sleep — it can collect under eyes and become visible, since the skin there is so thin.

Discoloration under eyes can also be caused by genes, age, and increased melanin (the brown pigment in skin that causes it to tan in the sun). If this is the case, sleep deprivation can make your under-eye issue worse, Breus says.

Hair loss, breakage, damage, and even growth can all be affected by lack of sleep, Breus says. Hair follicles (where hair growth begins) gain nutrients, vitamins, and minerals from blood flow. Since blood flow decreases when we’re short on shut-eye, “hair gets less food, it weakens, and it has difficulty growing,” Breus says.

Lack of Zzz’s can also lead to more stress, Wexler says. “Stress causes an increase in the hormone cortisol, which can cause you to lose hair.”

Being short on sleep can cause the corners of your mouth to droop, making you look sadder than you do after a good night’s rest.

“When you’re tired, your facial expressions change in subtle and consistent ways. We tend to furrow and frown more,” Day says. “When people say, ‘You look tired,’ it can be because of these expressions.”

Red, swollen eyes, dark circles, sagging eyelids, and paler skin can also signal to others that you’re exhausted.

People who don’t get enough rest are also seen as less healthy than when they’re rested.

Your skin can focus on repairing itself while you sleep, since it isn’t defending itself from sun and free radicals (harmful molecules from the environment). Blood flow is also more consistent, and this helps your skin benefit from the flesh-repairing ingredients in your beauty products, Wexler says.

Skin also loses more water when you sleep than it does during the day. Apply a creamier moisturizer before bed and drink plenty of water during the day to help your complexion stay hydrated overnight, Day says.

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Sleeping Beauty. How to take care of your skin at night? | Beauty secrets | Health

06/02/2022 00:10

Anna Shatokhina,

Lilia Dyshlevaya

Approximate reading time: 4 minutes

1884

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.

There are contraindications, you need to consult a specialist

beautician’s advice

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Sleeping beauty: why night skin care is more effective?

For most girls, it becomes a discovery that not only the body, but also the skin lives according to certain biorhythms. The most important time in the day for her is the period from 11 pm to 4 am. At this time, the skin absorbs a maximum of useful components from creams and serums, rests from makeup and ultraviolet radiation. Beauty Backstage recognizes the importance of nighttime facials and suggests trying one of the following products to work while you sleep.

Ansaligy For Tina Kandelaki Night Cream, Ansaligy

Modern manufacturers are increasingly using high technology in the creation of cosmetics. Ansaligy For Tina Kandelaki, for example, contains SWT-7, derived from the biomolecule of pure swerciamarin, the leaf of the traditional Ayurvedic plant Swertia chirata. The cream is intended for combination skin, the owners of which are faced with the first mimic wrinkles.

Valo Vitamin C Revitalizing Sleep Cream, Lumene

Specialized care from Lumene is designed for dry and “tired” skin. Cream-sleep is enriched with antioxidants and hyaluronic acid, which preserves the natural moisture level of the epidermis. Omega fatty acids support radiance and soothe irritated areas. Valo Vitamin C contains a high concentration of Arctic cloudberries, rich in ascorbic acid.

The Prestige Balancing Cream, Berrisom

Berrisom’s The Prestige Balancing Cream is a premium cream that acts on the skin in several directions at once: it tightens pores, whitens, slows down cell aging and provides protection from the negative effects of the environment. The cream is based on the unique compound A05: evening primrose extract mattes, camellia extract fights free radicals, cranberry oil speeds up metabolic processes, blackberry extract heals inflammation, and elderberry extract gives elasticity. The product contains natural SPF filters, so it can also be used as a make-up base.

Le Soin Noir Lotion, Givenchy

Lotions are used to prepare the skin for further care. They tone up after cleansing and serve as conductors of nutrients into the deeper layers of the skin. But a lotion like Le Soin Noir has every chance of claiming the title of self-care. It is based on brown algae extract, which prevents the breakdown of collagen bonds and skin aging.