Best Way to Improve Your Beauty Sleep



Supermodels swear by it and babies do it all the time. Sleep is the ultimate beauty treatment – and it’s free!

While you are deep in the land of Nod, your skin renews itself at a level untouched by even the most technologically advanced ‘miracle’ cream. Skin cells reproduce themselves at a faster rate and collagen production speeds up, which explains why, after a restful night’s sleep, you wake up looking radiant and feeling energised.

Beauty Sleep Best Way to Improve Your Beauty Sleep

Lack of zzzs will also affect your looks: we’ve all experienced that morning-after feeling when a nocturnal-looking creature with dark-rimmed eyes and a drab, greyish-looking complexion stares out at us from the mirror. Looks aside, sleep deprivation inhibits your co-ordination and control over situations, lowers the effectiveness of your immune system, leaves you feeling lethargic and tetchy, and heightens your emotions – you will, no doubt, recognise that wretched feeling when you could burst into tears or let rip with rage at the slightest thing. So if the last time you had a proper night’s sleep was when your mother tucked you up and read you a bedtime story, make a concerted effort to get more of nature’s beautifier.

Tips for peaceful slumber

  • Beautify yourself: pep up your looks while you sleep by applying treatments to parts of the body that need a particular boost. Apply a face or hair mask, for example, and massage your hands and feet with cream or oil before popping on pre-warmed cotton gloves and socks.
  • How long? On average, adults need between six-and-a-half and eight hours’ sleep, but as the number of hours depends very much on the individual, you should work out your own optimum quota.
  • Clear your mind: if you’ve been working late, it is important to unwind before going to bed. Try reading: even if you are wide awake, after a few pages your eyes will tire and you will feel sleepy. Reading also helps to divert your mind from any worries or intrusive thoughts that could otherwise prevent you from sleeping.
  • Relax in a warm bath: sprinkle your bath water with such sleep-inducing products as Origins’ Sensory Therapy Sleep-time Bath Oil, or a bath oil containing lavender or sandalwood.
  • Prepare your boudoir: make sure that your curtains keep out the light and check that your bed and pillows are comfortable. If you are a light sleeper, muffle any extraneous noise with earplugs for an uninterrupted night’s sleep.
  • Insomnia: if you suffer from sleepless nights, avoid taking sleeping tablets – they may induce sleep but scientists have proved that the quality of sleep is dramatically reduced. Instead, try natural herbal remedies, such as valerian root and passiflora, or sprinkle your pillow with a drop of lavender essential oil.

Beauty Sleep 1 Best Way to Improve Your Beauty Sleep

  • Catching up: if you’ve gone to bed with the dawn chorus, don’t worry about trying to catch up on every single hour you’ve lost – your body naturally compensates for missed sleep on the following night by sending you into a deeper, less interrupted slumber. Retiring to bed early for a couple of nights is one of the best ways in which to get back on the sleep track.
  • Bedtime nectar: avoid drinking coffee before you go to bed – the caffeine will make you more alert. Instead, have a natural, sedative drink, such as camomile, primrose, veberna, lemon-balm tea or hot milk, which contains the amino acid tryptophan and has a sleep-inducing effect.





Leave a Reply