Sleep your way to great skin, year round!
Seasons change but one thing remains the same: sleep and its effect on your skin!
As we shift into PSL season, we start to stay in and rug up more. Prepping your skin for the new season actually looks a lot like what you’re doing for the rest of your body.
We need to cloak our skin in hydration to counteract the impact of the dry winds and cold temperatures that fall brings. We also need to make sure we’re feeding our skin properly. This means boosting our Vitamin D intake now that the sun is starting to take its leave, upping our antioxidant intake to protect against the scourge of winter illnesses and making sure we have optimal sleep hygiene so we can tackle the coming winter.
Get the D!
Vitamin D that is! Cuffing Season might be just around the corner, but get your mind out of the gutter! Vitamin D is an essential nutrient responsible for calcium and phosphate absorption for improved bone strength and density. Additionally, Vitamin D assists with magnesium absorption.
Magnesium is an essential micro-mineral used throughout the body in everyday processes. Magnesium is essential for muscle and bone health, regulating energy and blood sugar levels and is even thought to reduce the effects of PMS.
During the summer, we naturally absorb Vitamin D through our skin. The Sun is a great source of this essential vitamin, and who doesn’t love the feeling of the sun on their skin? During the summer months, we tend to feel stronger and healthier, partly due to the amount of Vitamin D we’re naturally absorbing. As the summer fades, we retreat indoors, getting less natural exposure to this vital element.
Running low or experiencing a Vitamin D deficiency is especially common in the depths of winter, but the effects can certainly start to be felt in the fall.
Symptoms of Vitamin D deficiency include:
(Of course this list is not exhaustive and if you feel one or more of these symptoms please make sure you consult with your health care practitioner)
- Fatigue
- Not sleeping well
- Bone pain or achiness
- Depression or feelings of sadness
- Hair loss
- Muscle weakness
- Loss of appetite
- Getting sick more easily
- Pale skin
The thing about the body: everything needs to be in balance. Have you ever noticed that when you feel fatigued you’re likely to get sick more easily? You might also be more likely to experience significant mood swings or bouts of depression? Making sure you’re supporting your body by getting the right nutrients will help to support your body, improve your sleep and boost your energy levels.
If you think you’re getting enough Vitamin D but are having trouble sleeping, we’d suggest taking a look at your environment. Making sure your bed is just right might make you feel a bit like Goldilocks on her adventure into the woods but we promise when everything’s ‘just right’, you’re more likely to get the shut eye you need!
Try boosting your bedtime with luxe silks from the Beauty Pillow Silk Collection. We’ve got a little bit of everything Silk Pillowcases, Silk Eye Masks and more!
Silk is a bit of a magic fabric if you ask us! The naturally smooth fibers help to regulate temperature and are hypoallergenic. This helps you stay comfortable and sleep without being disturbed by pesky dust mites or other allergens that traditional pillowcases absorb. Adding a Silk Eye Mask will help to reduce light stimuli that can interrupt your sleep. Beauty Pillow’s Silk Eye Masks are designed to comfortably cushion the delicate eye area, reducing compression wrinkles and puffiness that develop overnight. You’ll wake fresh faced and ready to tackle the day - it’s up to you to get out from under the covers!
Ray Banners: the Power of Antioxidants
Antioxidants are having a bit of a moment in the skincare and wellness industries at the moment, and rightly so! These powerhouse molecules help to balance out the active free radicals that are all around us. Free radicals are uneven atoms that, if left unchecked, can wreak havoc on our bodies.
Internally, these unbalanced little so and so’s can lead to the development of some pretty serious illnesses like diabetes, cancers and other serious ailments. The best way to keep them in check? Eating a balanced diet and avoiding foods high in saturated fats and processed sugars.
Externally, we experience hard-to-avoid free radicals from our everyday environment. Things like pollution, UV Rays, pesticides and fertilizers can dramatically affect our skin health. Preventing this damage with daily sunscreen, cleansing and moisturizing routines will go a long way to reducing the impact of these environmental stressors.
What if we told you there was a way you could do nothing, while doing something? Sounds too easy to be true doesn’t it? Well, sleep is one of the best things you can do for your body, so boosting your sleep with antioxidants is definitely a win-win-win! Beauty Pillow’s Skin+ Pillowcase is a game changer when it comes to how you sleep.
Skin+ is a sleep technology Tencel fabric full of microcapsules infused with probiotic antioxidants. As you shift positions throughout the night, the microcapsules release antioxidants which transform into carotenoids on contact with the skin. Carotenoids are some of the strongest antioxidants, responsible for repairing and restoring the effects of environmental stressors like sun exposure. These antioxidants go to work while you sleep, boosting your collagen production, reducing the development of wrinkles and lines.
You’ll wake up looking and feeling fresher, every day!
Sleep right!
The secret to year-round glowy skin? Consistency!
Sorry it’s not a sexy fad. It’s basic, it’s boring but you know what? It works!
Being consistent in almost every area of your life will result in long term gains physically, mentally and emotionally. If you’re consistently inconsistent, that’s something different entirely.
Making sure you have an environment that’s conducive to sleep might sound like a no-brainer, but think about how you sleep at the moment. Do you have pets that sleep with you or make noise during the night? Do you get hot and stuffy under the covers or too cold? Do you have light or noise sensitivity that frequently interrupts your sleep?
Any or all of these can interrupt your beauty sleep and impact on your sleep hygiene. Having many nights in a row of interrupted sleep can take its toll on your daily functioning. We need solid periods of sleep every night for our bodies to get into REM or slow wave sleep states. This is the most coveted state of sleep where our brains and bodies are hard at work repairing from the stresses of day to day living.
Without sustained periods of REM sleep, our circadian rhythms get out of whack, leaving our immune systems compromised, making our skin lifeless and dull and impacting on our cognitive function and processing. Sleep really does a lot for us, doesn’t it?!
Creating an environment that’s just right, means just right for you. Now we’re in the new seasonal phase, we might have brought out the thicker duvet and put the fan away. Blocking out bigger sleep interrupters like pets and external stimuli can be a little trickier. The best advice for your four legged friends is to sleep on their own beds. We love a snuggle too, but if the goal is uninterrupted sleep, Fido should probably be elsewhere.
Adjusting to light and noise stimuli can be difficult. The best bet is to try blocking. For light, trying black out curtains and covering standby lights can go a long way to improving your sleep hygiene. For a more accessible option, the Beauty Pillow Silk Eye Masks are a great option for blocking light and helping to reduce sleep disruptors.
When it comes to noises, it can be tricky. Ear plugs can work great for some, while others find them uncomfortable. Other alternatives are white noise machines or sleep sound machines to lull you to sleep and prevent noise pollution throughout the night. For a unique mix of sleep sounds and sleep analyzer, check out the apps that monitor how much you move in your sleep. It’s a great (sometimes unsettling) look into your nighttime sleep habits.
Boosting your sleep with the Beauty Pillow is one of the best ways to support your skin and body throughout the year. The slight elevation of the pillow works to keep your neck and spine aligned in sleep. The high quality VISCO memory foam absorbs your overnight compression, while the side cut outs reduce the impact of nightly compression on your face and neck, reducing the development of sleep wrinkles.
Explore real Beauty Sleep with the Beauty Pillow today! Partner with the Skin+ Pillowcase for an antioxidant boost and don’t forget to layer with a luxe Silk Pillowcase for improved sleep night after night.