Sleepy Spice: Salt

There’s a thought in cooking that for any recipe to succeed, you need 4 key ingredients: Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. 

It’s a really simple philosophy that yields delectable results. So, in this season of all things pumpkin spice, we thought: why not? Why not approach beauty sleep and holistic health like a recipe? 

This week we’re talking about the first step, the baseline of the recipe: Salt. 

How do we figure out the baseline of beauty sleep? It’s in the name! Sleep! 

So, let’s take a look at the essential element of sleep, as we equivocate it to salt in our recipe for well being and beauty that goes beyond skin deep. 

S for Sleep

Sleep is one of the core human elements. We all universally need sleep. It’s how our bodies repair and reset after the exertions of each day. Our brains need it to function. If our bodies don’t get enough sleep consistently, they fall into disease and disrepair. Without sleep, our cognitive function slows, we become irritable and our appetite spikes, just as our energy levels crash. 

So, how do you get enough sleep? And how much is enough for health and well being? 

The general thinking is that adults need about 7 hours of sleep each night. Over those 7 hours, our brains repair and reset, our heart slows to a resting heart rate which relieves the muscles of tension that the days excursions bring, and our digestive system releases hormones that regulate the digestive process. All while we’re sleeping. 

It’s pretty cool when you think about it. We close our eyes and our bodies do all this stuff. It’s like simmering the sauce (if you'll forgive the cooking analogy). This is where the flavors marinade. 

 

 

So, how can we help make sleep better for the body? Make it work for us?

There’s a few tools we’ve got up our sleeves! 

The Beauty Pillow is designed to reduce the amount of weight you place on your face overnight. With a traditional pillow, you ‘smush’ your face into the pillow. It might be squishy and comfortable at first, but when you do this consistently, you’re actually transferring 5kg or 11lbs of gravitational pressure onto your face every night, for at least 7 hours or more. 

This repeated pressure builds in the muscles of the face, leading to the development of deep set sleep wrinkles. Unlike expression lines and wrinkles, sleep wrinkles or sleep creases are deeper in the muscles of the face and can’t be treated by topical or cosmetic treatments. That means all the lotions and potions and even botox aren’t getting to the areas they need to target. 

Sleep wrinkles tend to sit in vertical lines along your face, as opposed to expression lines which follow the pattern of the muscles. Sleeping with a tool like the Beauty Pillow will help to reduce the nightly compression, reducing the appearance of sleep wrinkles. Beauty Pillow’s extra benefit lies in its design. In reducing facial contact with the pillow, the Beauty Pillow actually saves you money!

Think about your nightly skincare routine, before you get into bed, do you apply serums and treatments to your face and hair? As soon as you lay on your pillow, those products are transferred to your pillowcase and absorbed. With the Beauty Pillows cut outs and positioning zones, your facial contact is minimized, meaning your products (and you money) go further and are more effective.

 

A for Activity

Just as our bodies need sleep, they need movement. You might notice that after long hours sat at your desk your back feels tense and sore, your shoulders are tight and you generally feel sapped and sluggish. Taking the time to exercise each day will help to loosen the physical tension you feel and can help to improve your mental health and cognitive function. 

Without a good night’s sleep you’re likely to feel low energy levels and without exercise, you’re likely to sleep poorly. Life’s all about balance, after all!

Getting in some activity helps our bone density, helps muscle tone and flexibility and improves our mood and mental wellbeing through the release of endorphins. Supporting your exercise routine with active recovery tools like the Knee Pillow by Beauty Pillow is a great way to support muscle repair through increased blood flow. 

Using the Knee Pillow as an active recovery tool can help you maintain your active lifestyle well into your senior years. Staying active is important for heart health, digestion and mental function.

L is for Lymphatic Drainage

 Just like in cooking, somethings need to drain or they’ll get clogged and soggy. It’s a weirdly striking visual, isn’t it? Our lymphatic systems is part of what helps us remove and eliminate excess water and fluids from our body. When we experience fluid build up, we tend to look and feel swollen and blotchy. This is particularly true for our faces. 

Fluid retention in the face is particularly obvious, since the skin is so thin. When we sleep on traditional pillows, our faces compress into the pillow, restricting blood flow. This leaves us waking up looking and feeling puffy and bloated. If only there was a functional beauty tool that could help?! 

The Beauty Pillow is the first thing that comes to mind. The patented design of the Beauty Pillow elevates the head, promoting blood flow and lymphatic drainage. This might sound a bit strange, after all, blood flows naturally through every part of our body, right? Well yes, and no. Traditional pillows tend to compress and push gravitational tension up into the face as we sleep. This compression restricts blood flow, which can lead to a puffy, blotchy face when you first wake up. 

 

Reducing the amount of compression and tension leads to a brighter, fresher complexion, naturally. Supporting your beauty sleep with a routine of facial yoga and massage will help to define your facial muscles and reduce facial bloating, for a younger, fresher face. 

 

T is for Tension

Sometimes in our modern lives, feeling tense seems par for the course, after all there’s a lot to stress about! 

Take  a minute right now to take a deep breath and let go of your jaw. 

Feels great, right?

We do this all the time! It’s unconscious and uncomfortable. Holding our faces like this can lead to stress and tension headaches which can be hard to relieve. Taking sometime to practice deep breathing and removing outside stimuli is essential for our overall health and wellbeing and is especially important for deep sleep. 

Try a Silk Sleep Mask to help you disconnect. Beauty Pillow’s Silk Eye Masks are gentle to the delicate eye area, padded to block out light and stimuli and are comfortable to wear all night or for long stretches of time. Whether you’re traveling or meditating, we think a Silk Eye Mask will be just the ticket to help you decompress and destress! 

Check out the Beauty Pillow Collections for new additions for your health and beauty routine!