Beauty Sleep For Clear Skin | The Power of Rest
Sleeping has a strong connection to your skin condition. Some good night’s sleep and your skin suddenly feels smoother and glowy. Those blemishes suddenly fade away and all the pimples become calm. You might think that it’s the power of skincare. Surprisingly not, it’s the power of resting and sleeping that helps to heal your skin.
Advantages of Good Sleep for Skin-health
Sleeping brings your body into a state of rest and repair. This helps the body to increase cellular turnover and regeneration. A series of DNA repair, collagen synthesis, and eliminating damaged cells will help your skin be able to maintain its elasticity and firmness (Aswell, 2022). These factors are detrimental to keeping the fresh and youthful look for the skin — crucial for anti-aging.
Sleeping also increases the system’s blood flow. The process helps to deliver essential nutrients and oxygen to your skin cells (McCall, n.d). Furthermore, the quality hours of letting your body go into rest mode help the system to regulate hormone levels including the stress hormone (cortisol). A system with balanced hormone levels helps the skin to function healthily and prevent hormonal acne. Overall, good sleep helps you to improve circulation, nourish the skin, balance the hormonal system, and promote a healthy, radiant complexion.
How to Practice Beauty Sleep
- Consistent Sleep Schedule
Little do we all know that inconsistent sleep habits could affect our sleep quality. Do you have the habit of sleeping in on the weekends since you stay up late on Friday nights going out or just relaxing? On weekdays or even weekends, it is recommended that you should go to bed, and wake up on a consistent schedule. This helps to regulate our biological clock and achieve better sleep quality.
2. Limit Screen Time Before Bed
Exposure to blue light sources could disrupt your body’s signal that it’s bedtime. The habit of scrolling up and down on devices (smartphones, laptops, tablets) before bed is a common practice among multiple people. Switching to readings before bed is recommended as it helps your mind relax while naturally leading your body into the sleep cycle. Limiting screen time at least an hour before bed is a good way to protect a good night's sleep. The use of the blue light filter is highly recommended if you need to use your devices before bed.
3. Sleeping in a dark space
Similar to exposure to blue light, keeping your room dark during bedtime is crucial to maintaining a good night’s sleep. Too much lighting in the room will confuse your brain signals. This creates a suppressive effect on your melatonin levels (Harvard Health, 2020)— potentially making falling asleep harder and lowering your sleep quality.
4. Regular Exercise
Committing to exercise regularly not only helps you to carve the dream body but also a good night's rest. Regular physical activities will help to keep your blood flowing. This helps to improve sleep quality and promote deeper, more restful sleep hours. Setting the schedule to exercise at least 30 minutes regularly is highly recommended. However, heavy workout sessions before bedtime should be avoided as they can be stimulating, and make it harder to fall asleep (Nunez, 2020).
5. Not too much water before bedtime
Staying hydrated is beneficial. Yet, it is not recommended to consume too much liquid before your bedtime. The reason behind this is quite simple. The consumption of too much water before bedtime could potentially disrupt your sleep with the need to use the bathroom. This sudden wake in the middle of the night would disrupt your sleep cycle. Many people find it hard to go back to sleep after going to the bathroom for 5 to 10 minutes.
6. Avoid Stimulants and Heavy Meals Before Bed
The assumption of caffeine or alcohol close to bedtime affects your body’s ability to fall asleep. Due to the stimulating effect of these substances, people usually spend more time trying to sleep. In addition, it is recommended to avoid heavy meals before bed. The consumption of large and heavy meals close to bedtime has been proven to affect sleep quality. This is due to eating a large meal before bed makes your body work harder on digesting the food. The process will increase metabolic activity and raise your body temperature. Overall, the body will experience discomfort, bloating, and indigestion which interfere with the body’s natural sleep-wake cycle
Key Takeaway
Besides mood and physical health, sleep shows a strong connection with skin health. Enough quality sleep will help you achieve a healthy looking skin. Don’t forget to follow the tips above and see if you sleep quality is improved. Are you ready to become sleeping beauties?
Reference
Aswell, S. (2022). Beauty sleep: Is it real? Retrieved from https://www.healthline.com/health/beauty-skin-care/beauty-sleep#takeaway
Harvard Health. (2020, July 7). Blue Light has a dark side. https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/blue-light-has-a-dark-side
McCall , P. (n.d.). 7 benefits of sleep for exercise recovery. ACE. https://www.acefitness.org/resources/everyone/blog/7818/7-benefits-of-sleep-for-exercise-recovery/
Nunez, K. (2020, July 9). Working out before bed: Is it good or bad for sleep?. Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health/working-out-before-bed#types-of-exercise
Harvard Health. (2020, July 7). Blue Light has a dark side. https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/blue-light-has-a-dark-side
