Think you can get away with under six hours sleep
a night and still look radiant? Think again. Getting
your beauty sleep is an actual thingS
leep, and whether we
are getting enough, has
become a modern day
obsession. But instead
of tucking ourselves into bed
early to get the seven to eight
hours the experts recommend,
we’re slicing into our slumber
in order to squeeze in other,
more ‘important’, things.
With stress at an all-time
high, workloads getting even
heavier and total smartphone
dependence the norm, sleep
seems the most obvious part
of our day to scrimp on. The
problem is, if we regularly cutinto our shut-eye, eventually
we will pay for it in the form
of health issues such as illness,
depression, anxiety, weight
gain, infertility – or just not
being able to keep our eyes
open when 3pm rolls around.
‘Sleep is vitally important
to our physical health,’ says
Dr Carmel Harrington, sleep
expert at Sleep for Health.
‘Without it we are susceptible
to infections and more likely
to develop certain cancers as
well as heart disease and type2 diabetes. Obesity is also
linked to lack of shut-eye.’
Our skin is affected, too.
‘You need sleep to rejuvenate
your organs such as your liver
and heart,’ says functional
wellness practitioner Darren
Cox. ‘If these aren’t at their
best, neither is your skin.’
It might seem as though
our complexion is doing a lot
of nothing while you sleep, but
the wee hours is actually when
skin goes into damage control
after the 16-hour (or more)onslaught of UV, pollution,
smoke, smog and stress that’s
thrown at it during the day.
As well as being the body’s
opportunity to rest, repair
and restore, night-time – and
your bedroom – is also a safe
and clean environment where
‘our skin is not prone to any
disruption or attack by UV,
pollution or repeated touch’,
says Ultraceuticals founder
and formulator Dr Geoffrey
Heber. ‘Products applied at
night can act uninterrupted.’S
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