Face Care Tip: Sleep!
Most of us know about the benefits of getting a good night’s sleep but think how many people still don’t understand why it is important to get enough sleep for keeping our skin in the best condition possible.
Sleep is the time when the cells of the body are repaired and this includes skin cells. And being that most of us lead busy lives, we tend to stay up late and not get enough sleep. At least, that’s one of my big challenges. I’m an early riser and have a hard time staying in bed.
Studies have shown that not getting enough sleep reduces a person’s amount of growth hormone. These levels of growth hormones are necessary for the repair process. If your level of growth hormone is down because of lack of sleep, your body will have less opportunity to repair the damage that has occurred to the skin throughout the normal course of the day.
Here’s the real crux of the matter: The rate of new skin cells produced by a person’s body actually doubles during certain periods of sleep. Which means, the more sleep you allow yourself to get, the faster your skin cells will have a chance to regenerate and the younger you are likely to look – besides feeling better!
Without this cell regeneration or with cell product reduced below certain levels the skin will tend to become more wrinkled and lose its tone.
So, is the answer as simple as you need to spend more hours sleeping each night? Well, yes and no. You should also consider the flip side – the effects that too many hours spent in your bed might have on your skin, too. Yep, there is always something else to think about and this time it is the way that you sleep.
How do you sleep? On your side? On your back? Spread eagle on you stomach with your face planted in the pillow? Not that I know from personal experience, but most people tend to sleep on their side or face down. What this does to their their face over time is create possible permanent crease marks!
When we are younger this is not a problem, however, as we age we lose some of the elastin in our skin, and that means the crease marks remain longer on our face and tend to take a bit longer to disappear as time goes on. Sleeping in the same position every night can potentially make these marks become permanent. Ugh! Who wants to look like they just got out of bed PERMANENTLY????
The alternative is to try to sleep on your back or to get softer pillows and satin pillow slips to reduce the marks. But most importantly, try to go to bed earlier tonight. And think peaceful thoughts.
Face Care Tip: Sleep!
