The Benefits of Beauty Sleep

Daylight Saving Time just so happens to fall on Halloween this year! Well, technically the EARLY hours of November 1st but for those still celebrating in their scary costumes - same difference right? And speaking of celebrating, let’s give it up for that extra hour of Beauty Sleep you’ll get to look forward to. Yes, Beauty Sleep is a real thing especially when it comes to the benefits a good night’s sleep provides for your skin. Let’s talk a little bit about what Beauty Sleep is and some tips and tricks to have your skin looking less scary and more glowy by morning.

What is Beauty Sleep?

To put it simply, beauty sleep refers to the benefits some ZZZs have on your overall appearance specifically when it comes to skin. You’ll probably have noticed that after a restful evening you wake up looking more alert, refreshed and alive, right? This is because of a few factors.

So, what are the benefits of Beauty Sleep?

Stressful vs Restful

As we sleep, our bodies produce less cortisol (aka the stress hormone) and more melatonin (aka the sleepy hormone) allowing our bodies to go into repair-mode. Stress is one of the main culprits in skin-inflammation and inflammation can look different for everyone but most commonly in the form of: 

• Breakouts
• Irritation and Redness
• Dryness 
• Puffy Eyes
• Fine Lines and Wrinkles

Whereas melatonin not only helps your body’s internal alarm clock, it also helps with antioxidant support! Yes, the anti-aging, skin-protecting antioxidants you love in skincare. Melatonin can help stimulate your body’s productions of the enzymes that help make them and some research even shows that these mela-oxidants (we made that up but it sounds cool, yea?) are on par with Vitamin C and E when it comes to their ability to fight off the environmental stressors our skin was exposed to all day. Long story short: more sleep = less cortisol and more melatonin = less inflammation and more rejuvenation.

Less dehydration?

This is kind of a tricky one because while sleep can cause dehydration (since you’re not able to drink water), sleep deprivation can actually make it worse. Some research has shown that the hormone in charge of controlling your body’s natural water balance gets released later on in the sleep cycle - this is why shorter periods of sleep might leave us looking extra puffy in certain areas like the under eyes! Dehydrated skin can not only feel tight and irritable but also look dull and lackluster, so the longer we can sleep the easier this is to avoid!

Less Free-Radicals?

While we’re in bed counting sheep, our bodies are exposed to less of the environmental stressors, irritants and free-radicals our skin faces while out and about during the day. But did you know that as we sleep our bodies can decrease the formation of free-radicals? Not all free-radicals are the same though, so while we don’t mean that your body is producing “pollution” internally, it is producing free-radicals that can cause internal stress and impact how our skin looks. We already talked about the antioxidant benefits of melatonin and antioxidants are one of the best ways to fight off free-radicals so sleeping in this case is definitely a win- win.

When is the best time to get my Beauty Sleep? Certain number of hours?

We wish we had an easy answer for you but this really varies person by person! Some studies suggest that the best time to go to sleep is somewhere between 8pm - 12pm and that 7-9 hours may be the norm but there are two pro-tips everyone seems to be aligned with:

1. When you’re starting to feel it’s time, take advantage of it if you can and don’t resist the urge to fight off the sleepiness
2. Get on a consistent schedule or routine when it comes to your bedtime and wake up times to get yourself on a healthy sleep pattern

Best Practices for the ultimate Beauty Sleep?

1. Refer to the last two tips above 👆👆
2. Try to cut down on the caffeine by mid afternoon and sub in some water
3. Do some meditations or breathing exercises to relax yourself before bedtime
4. Practice some self care in the form of an evening skincare routine (we recommend some Peace Out Skincare 😉😉)
5. Wear something (or nothing?) comfy/cute that you love waking up in 

So, take advantage of this extra hour of sleep (we know they’re sometimes hard to come by) and enjoy waking up even more beautiful than you already are! Xoxo

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