How to Adapt Your Skin Care to Sleepless Nights
The first and most important thing to do is to try and improve your sleep. There is a special branch of medicine, somnology, which studies and treats sleep disorders.
Skin damage aside, sleep disorders increase the risk of diabetes, blood circulation disturbances, endocrine and digestive systems’ diseases and even some types of malignant tumours. Sleep deprivation must be treated and fortunately effective therapy is available today.
The first thing to do is to look at all the things that prevent you from getting the sleep you need.
— Avoid bright white light in the evening, opting instead for deemed yellow light before sleep.
— It is very important not to overeat and not go to bed on full stomach.
— Checking social media before going to bed is also rather a negative factor: the blue light of your gadget screen disturbs melanin synthesis.
— Comfortable bed, cool air and good ventilation, quiet and dark bedroom will help you sleep.
— As for skin care, if you are concerned about skin dryness, use cosmetic products compensating for it. Trying skincare products improving regeneration and restorative properties is also a good idea. Night cream or concentrate can contain stem cells of plant origin, niacinamide, coenzyme Q10, wakame extract, green tea extract, centella asiatica extract, etc.
How to Help Your Skin Cope with Lack of Sleep
Circadian biorhythms appear to be a very stable system, they’re managed by deep brain structures and are fairly resistant to external influence. Individual circadian rhythm characteristics can be compensated for if necessary, for example by applying a thicker and more nourishing cream to dry skin at night which will reduce the increasing moisture loss and eliminate the feeling of taut skin in the morning.
Today new ingredients are available to help restore healthy circadian rhythm. The best known is melatonin, which can be both taken orally and included in skincare composition. Recently Clariant Lab created the first ingredient able to synchronise circadian rhythms of skin cells, as they’re desynchronisation can be dangerous and lead to health problems. The ingredient was named Beta-Circadin; it is based on the extract of South Korean plant Lespedeza Capitata, containing specific flavonoids carlinoside and isoscaftoside able to affect the expression of the skin’s ‘time genes’.
Steroid hormone dexamethasone has a similar effect, but it must not be applied unless prescribed by a doctor to treat some skin condition. Another ingredient that can recalibrate the skin’s biological clock was developed by Swiss laboratory Rahn on the basis of rice and rosemary extracts. This ingredient is called Celligent; it helps accelerate healing, improve the skin’s barrier properties and reduce the symptoms of stress in people who sleep badly, work night shifts or often travel across different time zones.
What Skincare Can Hide Traces of Sleepless Nights?
I always recommend products containing niacinamide and/or caffeine in the morning to ‘wake up’ the skin. Coenzyme Q10 produces good results as well. For sensitive skin centella asiatica extract is highly beneficial, and dry skin loves vitamin E, nourishing complexes based on natural oils, various forms of hyaluronic acid.
What we do not recommend for insomniac skin, is skincare increasing the burden on restorative systems, such as retinol and acid-based skincare.
Metabiotic Ice-Awake created by Swiss laboratory Mibelle on the basis of succinic acid fermented by the ancient bacterium lodobacter discovered in the retreating glacier on the Matterhorn mountain can affect circadian processes. Metabiotic activates the expression of chaperone protein genes, responsible for the 3D folding of collagen fibres in the dermis. This process only takes place at night, is one of the first to be disrupted by lack of sleep and is the key factor of the loss of skin elasticity in sleep-deprived people. Ice Awake can increase the skin’s firmness, maintain and increase elasticity, despite trouble with sleeping!
Probiotic Sirtalice was created on the basis of previously unknown ocean bacteria by a French laboratory Lipotrue. The amazing bacteria were discovered in the ocean water at the depth of 3.5 km and turned out to be so effective in launching the nightly energy synthesis in the skin cell mitochondria, that the lifting effect is visible in 20 minutes! The restoration of energy metabolism helps synchronise cellular rhythms in sleep deprivation. Our old favourite niacinamide turned out to be able to restore the cell DNA by activating sirtuin protein genes. Soy glycoproteins extracted from soy proteins by biofementation activate the night synthesis of collagen type I characteristic for young skin — this is another process disrupted by lack of sleep and also with age.