Soon’s introducing Skin Moods, a blog series examining how our moods affect our skin and skin affects our moods. (It’s a chicken or the egg cycle.) We wanted to address how various inner conditions manifest in our skin and ways you may help alleviate it. Today we’re looking at how fatigue affects our skin.
SYMPTOMS
Sleep deprivation can have any number of effects on your well being. Besides feeling slow moving, weaker, or cloudy minded, your face easily shows lack of sleep. Skin blood flow increases during sleep so if you aren’t getting enough, one of the first places you show fatigue is in your face. You’ll often notice dark undereye circles, hanging eyelids, red eyes, swollen eyes, paler skin, droopy mouth, wrinkles, or fine lines.
EXPLANATION
Sleep serves to help our bodies regenerate. Dry skin, lines, dull complexion, and susceptibility to breakouts are due to skin’s reparative functioning being impaired. Lack of sleep lowers the pH levels in your skin and reduces the moisture resulting in redness and dryness. Good sleep helps clear out dead cells and replace them with new ones and help rid the body of toxins. Our brain repairs and neurons recharge. Essentially, sleep keeps your whole body balanced.
SOLUTIONS
Of course getting sufficient rest allows your skin to return to normal. However, there is a difference between merely being tired, fatigued, and exhausted. Cutting down on stressors is a large part of combating fatigue and exhaustion. For those times when a full night of sleep is out of reach, there are ways to help alter the effect missing z’s is having on your skin. Staying hydrated is important so don’t skimp on your water intake. Exercise to help your blood circulate and release endorphins you may be short on. A cold spoon, cream, mask, or compress under your eyes in the morning reduces swelling. Finally, a nightly ritual to help relax and calm yourself before bed puts your body and mind in a better state to fall asleep.
