Sleep: How proper sleep impacts the skin and entire body

When asked what the secret to good skin is, our clients are often perplexed when the answer (from a skin care company no less) is not a secret rare ingredient, it’s qualitative rest for the mind and body, and a positive mindset as a result.

Having a relaxing ritual to wind yourself down after your day will not only help you feel better than looking at a screen, it will result in more qualitative sleep. Sleep, specifically REM, is when our bodies repair themselves and directly impacts your metabolism, collagen production, and serotonin and dopamine (yes, the happy chemicals) production.

With clean hands, apply Daily Detox to your skin and massage in. The friction activates the papaya enzyme in this mask, which literally “eat” dead protein from clogged pores, while Italian clay and clorophyll rich herbs rosemary and basil pull out pollutants. Avocado and neem seed provide deep hydration and minerals like potassium to replenish the skin.

Take a bath with Epsom salts, rather than drying foaming agent filled bubble bath. Epsom salts  improve circulation, assist in digestion, expedites muscle recovery, and are plentiful with magnesium, a crucial mineral to the human body for rest and regeneration. I like to add a few drops of the Relax Oil from Absolute Aromas, which contains healing herbal oils or the Icelandic Moon Flower Oil from Red Flower. With steam rising up from the bath, this allows the enzymes from Daily Detox to reactive and further eat dead skin while pores open up to loosen up debris. Take advantage of this, and towards the end of your bath remove Daily Detox with a clean wash cloth of konjac sponge with warm clean water.

When you exit your bath, the oils will naturally lightly coat your skin for perfect night time hydration. When your skin is dry, apply Phyto Glow to brighten the skin and calm with cucumber, lactic acid, and lavender. This primes your skin perfectly to either use Alpha C or Night Light™. For additional hydration and healing, use our healing flower meets super seeds packed Phyto Flora serum as your final step to more deeply penetrate the vitamin C, carrot seed and pomegranate in Alpha C, and the vitamin B3 and DMAE in Night Light.

What you put in your body (or don’t, for that matter) for the final 5 hours you are awake is very important for rest and regeneration. If you are digesting food while you sleep, you will not get qualitative rest, so it’s important to keep you dinner early (at east 3 hours before you sleep) and light. Ideally, make this your most low carbohydrate meal, and stick to cooked vegetables like green beans, bell peppers, zucchini, spinach, asparagus, eggplants and artichokes. If you want protein in your dinner to promote cell regeneration, stick with proteins you know you personally digest well in moderate amounts. I prefer green peas for a plant-based source, or grass-fed organic eggs.

Certain supplements work best at night, such as chelated magnesium, which reduces blood pressure and is crucial to hundreds of biochemical mechanisms in the body.

Ashwagandha rebuilds neurons in the brain, and while used for thousands of years in Ayurveda for thyroid imbalance, anxiety, and a range of other concerns, it stimulates REM in the brain and keeps you asleep rather than having a typical sedative effect. I like the Ashwagandha from Gaia Herbs.

Passionflower promotes relaxation, by increasing the level of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) in your brain, which lowers brain activity gently. You can have it as a tea or take it as a capsule or tincture.

Have some tea: Not only does this help replace the ritual of eating too late, but it will hydrate and relax you. Some of my favorite teas are Lights Out by The Tea Spot, and Sakara Sleep Tea

You can also make your own teas, by ordering whole dried flowers of lavender, chamomile, catnip, or other relaxing herbs and using a metal tea strainer.

Finally, make sure your sleeping set up is ideal for 0 stimulation. Sleeping in complete darkness and silence is optimal, but if you live some where noisy you can use a white noise machine to combat noticing this as you sleep. Sleeping with a humidifier will not only hydrate your skin, but it will allow your products to stay more active, and result in less dehydration in your body as well.

This may all sound loosely related to your skin, but it’s actually directly impactive. We often forget that are skin is both a system and an organ, and is impacted by our need for rest just like our hearts, brains, and other organs. You know how your eyes and brain feel after insomnia? Imagine what a toll it’s taking on your skin. Though we are a skin care company, we are quick to address to holistic aspect of skin, and that it’s health is truly intertwined and connected to other functions of the body.