Beauty sleep is not a myth

Want a free a simple idea to improve your appearance?  My answer:  Get at least 8 hours of sleep a night.   The idea of people needing "beauty sleep" has acquired some scientific backing, according to a Swedish study.

The study, led by John Axelsson of Sweden's Karolinska Institute, was published Dec. 14 in BMJ, a British medical journal. It set out to explore the effect that sleep has on how one is perceived, specifically on others' judgments of an individual's attractiveness and health.

People deprived of sleep for long periods appear less attractive and more unhealthy than those who are well rested, say researchers.  Volunteers were photographed after eight hours sleep and again after being kept awake for 31 hours.Observers scored the sleep-deprived participants as less healthy and less attractive, the BMJ reports.

The concept of beauty sleep is well known. But, according to researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, it has lacked scientific support. The team asked untrained observers to rate the faces of 23 young men and women who had been photographed after a normal night's sleep and then after a night of sleep deprivation.  The photographs were standardized so that people were the same distance from the camera, wore no make-up and used the same expression.

The authors wrote in their paper published in the British Medical Journal: "Sleep deprived people are perceived as less attractive, less healthy and more tired compared with when they are well rested." They say the results may be useful in a medical setting, helping doctors to pick up signs of ill-health in their patients.

Commenting on the study, Derk-Jan Dijk, Professor of Sleep and Physiology at the Surrey Sleep Research Centre, said the effects of sleep loss on beauty may be even more dramatic than the photographs show. He said: "The photographs were taken during the daytime when the biological clock promotes wakefulness.  Can you imagine how sleep loss makes you look at night or early in the morning when the circadian clock (body clock) promotes sleep?"

Findings showed that sleep-deprived people appear less healthy, less attractive and more tired compared with when they are well rested," wrote the researchers. This suggests that humans are sensitive to sleep-related facial cues.

 
While the long-term effects of poor sleep on overall health have been widely researched, this is the first study to provide evidence that in the short term, sleep deprivation does in fact show up as a discernible change in facial appearance.

So, get some sleep and go from rough to ravishing!