A small new study now confirms that your best beauty trick is to get a good night’s sleep. Findings revealed what you’ve probably seen in the mirror after a rough night: sleep-deprived people look more, shall we say, worn-out, with redder, more swollen eyes, darker under-eye circles, more
wrinkles and droopier eyelids and mouths than their well-rested selves. People also looked sadder when sleep-deprived than after a normal sleep, and this apparent sadness was related to looking fatigued, the researchers said.
“Since faces contain a lot of information on which humans base their interactions with each other, how fatigued a person appears may affect how others behave toward them,” said Tina Sundelin, author and doctoral student in the department of psychology at Stockholm University in Stockholm, Sweden. “This is relevant not only for private social interactions, but also official ones such as with health care professionals and in public safety.”
To conduct their research, Sundelin and a team from Karolinska Institute in Stockholm recruited 10 subjects, who were photographed on two separate occasions: after eight hours of normal sleep and after 31 hours of sleep deprivation. The photographs were taken in the laboratory at 2:30 pm on both occasions. Forty participants rated the 20 facial photographs with respect to various facial cues, fatigue, and sadness.
In a separate study announced earlier this year, University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio found that poor sleepers showed increased signs of skin aging and slower recovery from a variety of environmental stressors, such as ultraviolet radiation, the researchers said.
If you struggle with getting quality beauty sleep, WebMD and the Mayo Clinic offer the following tips to boost your slumber: Stick to a regular sleep schedule, even on weekends. Eat well, and avoid caffeine in the evenings or overeating before bedtime. Also try sleep accessories, such as a white noise machine or ear plugs, to block out distractions. Exercise during the day, which can aid sleep, and try to clear your mind from too much clutter before bedtime by writing in a journal beforehand, for example. [Hindustan Times]
