/ Advice
Have you ever had one of those mornings? The kind where the alarm goes off well before you’re ready to wake up, and you just know that when you peer into the bathroom mirror, you’ll look exactly the way you feel. Even minor sleep deprivation can lead to a number of physical signs such as dark shadows under your eyes, sagging of the skin around your mouth and eyes, and an overall lack of firmness and luster in your skin. In order to prevent these and other poor effects on the look and feel of your skin, we recommend that you get at least 7-9 hours of uninterrupted sleep per night.
Proper sleep allows your body the time and rest that it needs in order to produce collagen, which is necessary for your skin’s regenerative cycle. Every day, our skin gets a little damaged by sun, wind, friction, and just the general passage of time. With proper amounts of collagen produced during sleep, your skin is better able to repair the daily damage, which reduces the appearance of fine lines and prevents sagging.
Sleep is also the time when your body moves fluid around, removing it from over-saturated areas and delivering it to other organs and tissues that need it to function properly. When this process is cut short by a lack of sleep, fluid is left where it should not be, which is a cause of heavy bags and swelling under the eyes. This also means that fluid does not get to everywhere that it should be, which reduces hydration and prevents your skin in those areas from maintaining its usual color and vibrancy.
Finally, as if preventing proper skin regeneration and repair is not bad enough, a lack of sleep can also cause production of the stress hormone cortisol. This hormone leads to inflammation in your bodily organs and tissues. And as discussed in a previous blog, we know that inflammation is a catalyst for flare ups like acne, eczema, and psoriasis.
We don’t always have the time to get all of the beauty sleep we want or need, but striving to get at least seven hours of sleep per night can make all the difference in the appearance of your skin. If you’re already sleep deprived, even just one or two nights in a row of 7-9 hours of sleep can help make a noticeable difference in your skin’s appearance. So put down the blue light of your smartphone and tablet screens, turn off the television a little earlier, and make uninterrupted sleep a priority as often as you can. You won’t be sorry!
Haryani Dermatology and Aesthetics 772-217-5362
