Does Sleep Really Equate To “Beauty Rest”?

Oh, the days of our youth… 

Who hasn’t stayed up all night as an adolescent, whether it was due to a party or just because you couldn’t bear to part from the person on the other end of the line. Nowadays though most of us with daily responsibilities get quite irritated if our bodies all of a sudden wake up in the middle of the night and refuse to go back to sleep for hours and hours. Besides the fact that we will probably perform our duties like zombies, our faces will probably reflect our feeling of “zombiehood” with the accompanying

• Dark circles under our eyes
• Puffiness
• Sagging eyelids
• Lackluster skin sheen

Yep, unlike the days of our youth, lost sleep can really put your skin through the wringer!

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We need to consistently maintain a solid sleep schedule and get at least 7-8 hours of quality rest per night. We recommend this not just to avoid accidentally being mistaken for a member of your local zombie herd, but because it also maintains your immune system and general health. When you don’t get enough sleep, you throw three main hormones out of whack and these hormones also have an effect on your skin.

Cortisol
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If you are constantly under pressure and stress, your body’s response is to create lots of cortisol.  Cortisol is designed to create a short-term boost of available energy but in the long term it actually damages collagen.  Our skin needs its stores of collagen to maintain its elasticity.

GH

Growth Hormone is our bodies way of regulating the building of muscle, bone, and even skin.  Less sleep means less ability for GH to do its work of maintaining the body at night while we slumber.  One of its maintenance duties is rehydration of skin cells along with paving the way for cell repair.

Melatonin

This is our sleep hormone but it also supports our immune system.  It also supports the physical integrity of our skin as a barrier that protects us from the environment. If you do not get quality sleep, GH and Melatonin do not get produced in quantities sufficient to support all of your bodily needs. This happens while cortisol is being produced in greater quantities. These factors compound and combine to create an overall poor skin condition resulting in dullness, dry skin, more fine lines, and more wrinkles. So if you want your hormonal generators to work at peak efficiency and at the proper balance you should focus on ensuring that you get those 7 to 8 uninterrupted hours of…”Beauty Rest”.

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