Importance of beauty sleep

Better sleep leads to better skin, especially for women as they get older, according to results of a clinical trial at the University Hospitals Case Medical Centre in Cleveland, Ohio, USA.

The opposite is also true, too: poor sleepers in this study had more signs of skin ageing, the researchers reported at the May 2013 International Investigative Dermatology Meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland.

A total of 60 pre-menopausal women ages 30 to 49 participated in the study; half of them reported poor sleep, but all the participants completed a standard questionnaire-based assessment of sleep quality.

Using a skin-ageing scoring system, the researchers found more signs of skin ageing — fine lines, uneven pigmentation, slackening of skin and reduced elasticity — in the “poor sleep” group. But they saw no significant differences between the two groups in normal, age-related skin changes, including wrinkles and sunburn freckles due to sun exposure.

The researchers also reported that women who slept well recovered more quickly from sunburn, while recovery in poor sleepers was “sluggish,” with heightened redness lasting more than 72 hours — an indication that “inflammation is less efficiently resolved.”

The good sleepers’ skin also proved 30 percent better at retaining moisture than the poor sleepers’.

Source: drweilblog.com