We all know that a good night sleep is important for our overall health and wellbeing, but do you know how much of an impact lack of sleep has on the skin?
Our body's undergo a natural, internal process roughly every 24 hours that regulates our sleep-wake cycle called the Circadian Rhythm, which is controlled by a section of our brain called the Hypothalamus. Light signals the Hypothalamus to induce tiredness, eg Dusk, this then triggers your brain to send a signal to the body to release Melatonin, which causes the body to be tired (This is why you may find yourself to get sleepy a lot earlier in those dark winter months).
In this rhythm, there are dips in which our energy is low and our DNA is repairing. These dips are between 1:00PM-3:00PM and 2:00AM-4:00AM. Now I want to bring your focus to the 2:00AM-4:00AM dip. Due to your skin repairing between these times, if you are still awake or active, your skin is not fully repairing itself from the damage caused throughout the day from factors such as UV, Pollution etc, which can lead to a variety of skin problems such as dehydration and premature ageing.
An example of where this lack of 'beauty sleep' affects the skin, is with night-shift workers, such as Nurses. They may find they suffer with their skin a lot more than usual when they undergo night-shifts such as dehydration, due to their skin not receiving the repair it needs.
Stem cells in the epidermis reproduce at night, creating new skin cells which replace aged skin cells, also helping to reduce the appearance of ageing. Because our skin cells are engaged in different activities during different parts of the day, they are more sensitive and susceptible to damage at different times, that is why it is so important to wear SPF throughout the day to protect your skin from any further damage. Maintaining a healthy sleep pattern alongside with a good skincare routine and diet will allow you to manage your skin and achieve your GOAL skin.
THE POWER OF THE SLEEP
