How to Get Beauty Sleep: 7 Legit Tips
Sleep and beauty have a direct relationship, because without sufficient sleep you’ll start looking haggard and tired. The term ‘beauty sleep’ literally means enough sleep to keep you looking young and beautiful. It may be a bit tongue-in-cheek these days, but you really do need to get your 8 hours to keep looking fresh and youthful. But don’t take it from us – take it from the National Institute on Aging.
Sadly, many people don’t get enough sleep nowadays - it’s just one of the many side-effects of our changing lifestyle. Whether it’s due to a lack of exercise, dietary habits, screen addiction, noise pollution, an uncomfortable bed, or even underlying health issues, it’s harder and harder as you get older to get a decent night sleep.
Whatever the cause, we’ve rounded up the research and our best tips for getting real beauty rest.
Tips for Getting Enough Sleep
Check out these tips from some of the world’s sleep authorities to help you eliminate whatever problems are preventing you from getting enough rest so you can feel and look more bright-eyed and bushy-tailed!
- Start with upgrading your bedding (i.e. Get a 30 momme silk pillowcase!)
A 30 momme silk pillowcase might be the very thing you need to let your weary head sink into slumber – so give our luxurious silk pillowcase a try. They are made with the softest silk possible, eliminating any complaints your skin may have as you try to drift off to sleep. Silk helps your face and neck rest better, because the material is soft and smooth.
Silk is highly absorbent: it can absorb up to 30% of its weight in moisture without feeling damp. Silk will absorb perspiration while letting your skin breathe.
Silk helps reduce inflammation and inflammation-related skin conditions such as acne. A clinical trial proved this by testing the effects of silk pillowcases on people who suffer from acne, and they were able to show that sleeping on a silk pillowcase reduced the nighttime inflammation from acne sufferers.
Silk bedding may even improve nighttime allergy issues. Silk fibers are resistant to dust mites, mildew and dander. The silk strands don't trap dust mites like cotton and other fibers, making silk bedding a top option for allergy sufferers.
Bonus: sleeping on silk also helps you keep your beauty products where they belong. While other materials absorb night creams and serums, silk absorbs much less, leaving your skin to enjoy the overnight healing effects of your favorite beauty sleep regimen.
- Optimize your sleep schedule
Getting your sleep timing right is highly important when you’re trying to get good reliable sleep. Busy individuals with an erratic work schedule may find this difficult, but it’s worth experimenting with various sleep strategies. After all, getting enough rest isn’t just important for your appearance, it’s important for your mental and physical health.
Set a fixed waking up time, go to bed at the same time every day (make changes gradually), and try to not stay up too late at night. Also, as much as we love a good nap, be wary of napping too often or for too long – or you may find yourself unable to sleep at night!
- Create a bedtime ritual
It’s important to have a bedtime ritual, because the repetition is soothing, and it tells your body it’s time to wind down and get ready to sleep. A ritual is more than simply a schedule. A ritual is a series of actions and activities that help your body and mind transition to a new state. The bedtime ritual can include brushing your teeth, changing your clothes, reading a book for a little while, and maybe writing in a journal. You can also include a few sensory indulgences to start triggering your mind to settle down for sleep time. Use a lavender lotion, apply a nighttime face serum, light a scented candle or incense, and indulge in a heating pad by your bed for a little foot or low back warming relaxation.
All these habits are relatively simple to work into your night-time schedule.
And don’t forget, bright screens keep your brain awake and alert, so avoid using them (or looking at them) before bedtime. If you read on an e-reader, use Night Mode and turn the brightness down a little. You can also try blue-blocking glasses if night-time screens are a must!
- Keep your curtains open
In addition to using your 30 momme silk pillowcase, you should leave your curtains open, so daylight can stream in come morning and wake you up gently. It’s a good idea to wake up as the day starts, because sunlight has a strong effect on your internal clock, and it can help set your circadian rhythm back on track.
If you can’t wake early, go outside and get some daylight once you are awake. Light boxes are an alternative for places where daylight isn’t an option.
- Get some exercise during the day
Exercise has a lot of health benefits – it gets your blood flowing, it keeps you flexible and youthful, and it helps you sleep better. So, move a little during the day. It can be anything – yoga, some light jogging, biking, or even dancing. All you need to do is get your body moving.
Avoid exercising just before bedtime, though, because it can negatively affect your body’s ability to sleep. Exercise gets your blood pumping and makes you awake and alert, which can hinder your ability to settle down and relax if it’s right before bedtime.
- Make your bedroom sleep-inducing
While a 30 momme silk pillowcase will certainly help, it’s not the only change you need to make to your bedroom. Ideally, for perfect sleep, your bedroom should be quiet, dark, and cool. Work towards achieving this by shutting windows to eliminate noise, switching off all lights or keeping them dim to keep the bedroom dark, and regulating the indoor temperature so the bedroom’s nice and cool (not cold).
If you live close to the road or have noisy neighbors, you can get earplugs that block out ambient noise while allowing you to still hear your alarm go off in the morning or your phone ring in an emergency. Also avoid having any bright or blinking lights in your room – for example a charging laptop, or a PC. These can keep you up at night, even if you think you’re used to the lights. If they’re unavoidable, try our silk eye masks out.
- See a doctor
Sleep is an essential part of our life – you spend about a third of your life in bed! So, take a lack of sleep seriously. It could be insomnia, potentially caused by serious health problems such as depression or PTSD. It could also be undiagnosed sleep apnea. Many people have sleep apnea without snoring, so they never realize their body constantly wakes from a lack of oxygen throughout the night until they visit a sleep specialist. A health problem that’s allowed to fester undiagnosed can wreak havoc in your body.
So, if you’ve been struggling with sleeplessness for a long time and find nothing’s helping, please go to a doctor. If the problem is severe and is affecting your daily activities (for instance, if you can’t get any sleep at all), you should also seriously consider visiting your GP.
It can be a little overwhelming if you try to do all of these at once. The thing is, you don’t have to! These tips will all work independent of each other, although following them all would certainly be better. Take baby steps, starting with just a couple things first and then moving on to a couple more. Soon enough, you’ll find you’ve built a bunch of healthy habits that’ll have you snoozing peacefully every night.
Our 30 Momme Silk Pillowcase is Truly Luxurious
With all our mentions of the benefits of silk pillowcases, let’s touch on what does 30 momme mean? Momme (mm) is a unit of measurement used for silk. It is the weight in pounds of a piece of fabric 45 inches x 100 yards. So if this piece of fabric weighed 20 pounds, its momme weight would be 20. Generally, anything under 20 mm is considered lightweight, while 20-28 momme is in the middle range. Anything higher is considered a luxury – as is the case with our pillowcases.
However, there’s more – our pillowcases are made with pure mulberry silk, which is silk made from silkworms that are fed mulberry leaves, and it is widely recognized as the highest quality silk available.
So if you’re looking to make an upgrade to your bedroom, our pure silk pillowcase is the perfect item to add. It’s washable, has anti-aging, hypoallergenic and anti-inflammatory properties, and you can choose one of five gorgeous colors.
All of Fait avec Coeur's silk products are OEKO-TEX®, BSCI, and ISO certified.
https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/good-nights-sleep
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/results/NCT00767104
https://www.sleepfoundation.org/articles/how-exercise-impacts-sleep-quality
