As most people know, lack of sleep makes you feel groggy, fatigued, and even grumpy. But you might not know that sleep deprivation does a lot more than just make you feel groggy, fatigued, and grumpy.
The Effect of Sleep Deprivation on Your Skin
Lack of sleep has many bad effects on your body, most especially your skin. Sleeping helps your body to regenerate and feel refreshed and lack of it will definitely not make you feel refreshed.
So, how does lack of sleep affect your skin?
Darker Eyebags
When you don’t get enough sleep, you’ll notice that the bags under your eyes seem to be a lot darker than usual. Why is that? This is because our blood vessels dilate from sleep deprivation. Dark under eyes are also a sign that you’re iron deficient, meaning, the oxygen that is flowing in your bloodstream isn’t enough which is caused by lack of sleep. So when you sleep and get the right amount of it, your blood flow increases which help your skin to feel refreshed.
Dull Skin
Cortisol is a hormone that can trigger inflammation within your body that breaks down the proteins in your skin that keeps it smooth, youthful, and glowy. Insufficient sleep will raise your cortisol levels, which would lead to dull skin.
Increased cortisol levels that cause inflammation can also make your skin acne-prone and sensitive.
As mentioned above, lack of blood flow can be caused by lack of sleep, and as a result, it can make your skin look corpse-y (grayish and blotchy).
Dry Skin
We all know that sleep helps us feel rejuvenated both inside and outside. And with sleep, we naturally sweat. This sweat is one of our body’s ways to rebalance our hydration levels which in turn, becomes a natural moisturizer that will help with dry skin and smooth our wrinkles. Therefore, lack of sleep will reduce our natural moisturizer and cause our skin to be more dry.
Premature Aging of the Skin
Those mentioned above will be the cause of your skins’ premature aging. Getting wrinkles, dry skin, etc. will be the start of premature aging of the skin. Not to mention, lack of sleep increases your stress levels which could cause your body to struggle to regain your skins’ hormonal balance. This can cause your body’s collagen to break down, resulting in your skin losing its smoothness and firmness.
How To Keep Your Skin Healthy and Youthful?
So, how do you keep your skin healthy and youthful?
- Get enough sleep. That is one of the most important tips we can give you. Try sleeping at the same time every night. This will create a routine for your body so that you’ll naturally feel sleepy by that time.
- Don’t drink any caffeine a few hours before your bedtime.
- Stay hydrated. Keep a glass of water nearby so that when you’re thirsty drying the night, you won’t have to get up.
- Wash your face before going to bed with a gentle cleanser to remove all the dirt your face has accumulated during the day.
- Always use moisturizer!
Final Thoughts
It’s normal to not get enough sleep at times but make sure that you don’t overdo it since it’ll not only affect your mood, it’ll also affect your skins’ state the next morning.
