How to Make Healthy Skin Happy – Get Good Sleep

A 7 to 8 hours of good sleep every day is essential for your healthy skin to be happy. But a large number of us are unable to consistently put in that much time sleeping. Unfortunately, one of the victims of sleep deprivation is your skin.

So, it’s useful to know how exactly does good sleep gives you healthy skin. And, how insufficient sleep is bad for your healthy skin.

Good Sleep for Healthy Skin

Above all, consistently getting 7 to 8 hours of good sleep is good for your skin. And, some of these are described below.

Young and Healthy Skin

First of all, blood flow to the skin improves. As a result, you get healthy skin that looks good.

Smooth and Elastic Skin

Next, collagen levels increase. In fact, collagen, is a protein that promotes smooth healthy skin and elasticity.

Skin Texture of Healthy Skin

Also, good sleep improves the texture of your healthy skin.

Hydrated Skin

Most noteworthy, you perspire when you sleep. In fact, perspiration rebalances and recovers extra moisture for your healthy skin.

Wrinkles

In addition, perspiration makes sleep a natural moisturizer that helps smooth out wrinkles on the skin.

Healthy Skin Repair

Above all, in the first 3 hours of sleep, your body produces somatotropin, the human growth hormone. And, somatotropin is released from your pituitary gland. Most of all, it helps your skin repair damage that occurs every day. In addition, it stimulates collagen production in the skin.

Healthy Skin Protection

Next, in the middle two hours of sleep, melatonin levels increase. Moreover, melatonin acts as an antioxidant that helps protect your healthy skin from damaging free radicals.

Healthy Skin Recovery

Finally, in the last 3 hours of sleep, cortisol levels decrease. As a result, inflammation decreases. In addition, your skin gets its deepest recovery of the night.

Sleep Deprivation

On the other hand, sleep deprivation has many negative effects on your healthy skin. And, some of these negative effects are described below. So, if you are sleep deprived, you need to take steps to improve your skin.

Rise in Cortisol Levels

Now, the same studies reported the following.

First of all, sleep deprivation causes your body to release the stress hormone cortisol. Especially relevant, the cortisol inhibits fibroblast function and increases matrix metalloproteinases (collagenase, gelatinase). Furthermore, matrix metalloproteinases accelerates collagen and elastin breakdown.

But, both collagen and elastin are essential for skin integrity. So, when collagen breaks down, skin elasticity decreases. And, poor skin elasticity causes your skin to look wrinkled and saggy.

In addition, the skin shows signs of aging by becoming thinner and less firm. In fact, when skin is thin, its appearance is less smooth and subtle. As a result, wrinkles become more prominent and you get not so healthy skin.

Triggers Inflammation

Also, studies have reported that sleep deprivation (even as little as less than 7 to 8 hours of sleep) increases levels of inflammatory markers in the blood, like C-reactive protein and interleukin. In addition, other studies have similarly reported that sleep loss triggers key cellular pathways that produce tissue-damaging inflammation.

In fact, inflammation has several negative effects on your healthy skin:

Firstly, inflammation breaks down proteins in the skin which kept the skin radiant and smooth.
Secondly, inflammation may make small blemishes appear larger.
Also, inflammation causes outbreaks of acne, eczema, psoriasis, rosaea, and skin allergies.
Finally, the large number of inflammatory cells increases the breakdown of hyaluronic acid – the molecules that gave healthy skin its flow, bounce and translucency.

Healthy Skin Sensitivity

In addition, sleep deprivation causes your healthy skin to become more sensitive. In fact, signs of sensitive skin are:

First, you have frequent rashes or tiny red bumps.
Another is redness of the skin.
Yet another is when your skin has a negative reaction to cleansers, moisturizers, or sunscreen.
Or, you are sensitive to ultraviolet rays.
Also, your skin feels dry or irritating.
Or, you break out easily.
Next, your skin feels itchy.
Finally, you have broken capillaries.

Dark Circles

Also, sleep deprivation causes dark circles under the eyes because of dilated blood vessels.

Brown Spots and Healthy Skin

In addition, sleep deprivation causes brown spots to occur on your healthy skin.

Impaired Skin Barrier

Next, sleep deprivation impairs your skin barrier function. First of all, the skin barrier is the outermost layer of your skin, known as the stratum corneum. In fact, the skin barrier is designed to be tough and hard to penetrate. As a result, the skin barrier helps prevent water loss from your healthy skin.

Moreover, the skin barrier also keeps out irritants, macro organisms, and other pollutants that might disturb the rest of your skin organ.

So, when your skin barrier function isn’t working well, foreign invaders penetrate the skin. As a result, your skin ends up looking red and irritated. In addition, the skin loses water, which makes your skin become dry and flaky.

Healthy Skin Repair

And, not getting the full, first 3 hours of sleep causes you to lose the full benefits from the human growth hormone. As a result, repairing skin from daily damage, does not fully occur. And this induces the aging process.

The daily damage to the skin happens for several reasons, including:

First of all, ultraviolet rays of the sun breaks down the various components of the skin such as collagen and elastin that help keeps your skin looking smooth. These rays also affect melanocytes, which can lead to changes in your skin’s pigmentation.
Next, the sun’s ultraviolet rays produce free radicals, which are unstable oxygen molecules with a single electron. And free radicals damage the skin by trying to grab an extra electron from atoms in the skin. When atoms are taken away from the molecules in the skin, it damages the skin’s DNA and speeds up skin aging.
Also, chemicals in cleaning products and laundry detergent may cause red, irritated skin and allergies in susceptible people.
Finally, because your skin loses elasticity as you age, smiles and frowns causes wrinkles to appear.

Ashy, Pigmented, Blotchy Skin

Also, sleep deprivation causes you to become tired. As a result the blood in your body is not flowing efficiently, which results in lack of oxygen in the blood. And, this lack of oxygen causes your skin to appear ashy, pigmented or blotchy. In fact, ashy skin has a white or gray coloring that really shows up on skin with darker pigmentation.

Dry Skin and Look

Sleep deprivation causes your complexion’s pH level to drop. Consequently, your previously healthy skin looks less youthful and has less of a glow.

Also, when your skin’s pH level drops, there is an imbalance. As a result, your skin stops producing the moisture it needs which causes the skin to look drier. And dry skin likely results in one or more of the following signs:

First of all, you may feel a tight skin, especially after showering or bathing.
Secondly, the skin may show slight to severe flaking, scaling or peeling.
Also the skin may itch
In addition, you may see redness in the skin.
Next, you may see fine lines or cracks in the skin.
Also, the skin feels and looks rough.
And, the deep cracks in the skin may start to bleed.
Finally, the skin may look gray or ashy.

Pale and Dehydrated Skin

Finally, sleep deprivation causes your healthy skin to look pale and dehydrated. And there are four signs that tell you if your skin is dehydrated. Now, you can fix the dehydrated skin by hydrating it. Meanwhile, the four signs of a dehydrated skin are listed below.

First of all, your skin is itchy. And this is accompanied by flaking.
Secondly, with a deteriorated moisture barrier, the skin is more sensitive. So bacteria and pollution penetrates the skin’s outermost layer. As a result, symptoms such as redness, itchiness, and irritation appear.
Next, the skin has a dull and tired appearance. Because there isn’t enough hydration, the skin cuts back on shedding its outer layer. Furthermore, dead cells start to accumulate on the skin’s surface. As a result, the skin’s pores get clogged, and the skin has a lackluster complexion.
Lastly, the skin shows signs of aging such as wrinkles which appear as a network of tiny, triangular fine lines.