Divya Mehta, co-founder of skincare brand Epique, Switzerland, gives her expert advice about this new found skin issue amongst new age women.
She says after juggling your myriad duties and commitments, you look forward to winding down and getting some blissful, restful sleep. But here is something most people do not know: the second most rampant cause of wrinkles after UV exposure is sleeping or more accurately, the position you sleep in.
Sleep has always been associated with beauty and with good reason. It’s during those restful hours that our body rejuvenates and repairs itself. 7-8 hours of good, deep sleep is the elixir that can work wonders on your health and off-course your skin. Beauty sleep is definitely more than just skin deep.
However, pressing your face into a pillow for over 2500 hours a year can mean that you unwittingly may be ironing some wrinkles into your skin. These are called sleep wrinkles. Sleep wrinkles appear as lines on your face as a result of you pressing your face into a pillow. Over a period of time, these lines become more prominent and permanent. Young skin is better equipped to deal with them, but they don’t disappear as easily on mature skin. Botox as a solution is ineffective, because here’s another thing most people don’t know: Botox only works on expression wrinkles not sleep wrinkles.
So where on the one hand sound sleep is important, nay necessary, the position you sleep in also plays a pivotal role in the health of your skin. If you are not careful or made aware, get ready to welcome some sleep wrinkles.
The Side Sleeper
In this position, one side of your face is consistently and constantly pressed against your pillow. This causes vertical wrinkle lines to appear on the face. If this is your preferred sleeping position, as it is mine, try positioning you’re your head on the pillow so that the lower half of your face, (below the nose), doesn’t touch the pillow. This helps to prevent the nasolabial fold, or those lines that run from the nostril to the outer corners of the mouth, from developing.
The Stomach Sleeper
In this position, the entire face is buried into the pillow. This means that all the moisture from the face gets absorbed into the pillow, leaving the skin dry and wrinkly and prone to clogged pores and blemishes. Not only that, this position is also considered bad for the entire body structure. So all you tummy sleepers may seriously want to consider flipping over.
The Back Sleeper
In this position, the face does not touch the pillow at all making it the best position to avoid sleep wrinkles. Since the face doesn’t touch the pillow, no creases are made on the face from pillow contact; there is neither loss of moisture nor any dirt from the pillow being transferred onto the skin hence making it less prone to acne.
Changing your sleep position is tricky. All of us tend to slip back into our favorite positions to get that much-needed and well-deserved rest. But over time and with some effort, we can break old habits and get ourselves into the perfect position to enjoy healthier skin for longer. But no matter how much time and effort it takes or whether we are successful at all, remember to always enjoy the skin you are in and stay Beauty Eternal.
