The Benefits of Sleep for Your Skin, Hair, and Nails

When you live in the city that never sleeps, getting your full 7-9 hours of beauty sleep every night can be difficult. New York City is still moving at 2 in the morning — cabs are honking, clubs are open, and restaurants are still serving delicious food. 

You might feel like you’ll miss out on experiences by heading home early to sleep, but you’ll miss out on something more important by staying out: the beauty and health benefits of sleep. 

You could try all of the beauty products in the world and still never feel completely satisfied with your skin, hair, and nails if you’re not getting enough sleep. It turns out that there’s a reason it’s called beauty sleep. Let’s dive into the benefits of sleep for your skin, hair, and nails: 

Sleep Gives You Glowing Skin

Our NYC laser spa removes your hair — giving you the opportunity to flaunt your hair-free skin! If you want your skin to glow after laser hair removal treatments, one of the best ways to achieve that goal is to get quality sleep. 

How does sleep give you glowing skin? One of the biggest benefits of good sleep is that skin makes new collagen while you sleep. You might know about collagen from the beauty products you’ve purchased, but our body naturally produces it. 

Collagen accounts for 30 percent of your body's protein, providing structure and function to your skin, joints, and bones. You could apply skincare products made with collagen to your face every day — these products won’t help you glow from the inside out like the collagen your body naturally produces while sleeping. 

Karin Olszewski, RN, emphasizes the significance of getting quality sleep for your skin. She says, “The value of sleep is that it gives your skin time to rebuild itself. Your skin goes through much of its restoration while you sleep. If you cut back on sleep, you are reducing the time the skin has to repair, which can affect your appearance. Just like using sunscreen and quitting smoking, getting seven to nine hours of sleep at night can make a noticeable difference in how well you age.” 

Think about it: your skin acts as a barrier that protects you from pollution, dryness, wetness, and germs. It needs time to regenerate! 

Negative Effects of Restricted Sleep on Skin Health

Your skin will look noticeably healthier when you regularly get 7-9 hours of quality sleep. If you’re out enjoying NYC nightlife regularly, you’re not just missing out on the benefits of sleep for your skin: you’re negatively impacting it. 

According to a 2017 study, restricted sleep negatively affects facial appearance. Another study found that poor-quality sleep makes skin age faster. 

Moral of the story: if you prioritize your skin health, you’ll prioritize sleep. You can try to use expensive skincare products with collagen, peptides, and other beneficial ingredients, but you’ll never be able to bottle a good night’s sleep. 

How Does Sleep Impact Hair Health? 

Our laser spa offers affordable laser hair removal in NYC, so you don’t need to worry about body hair maintenance! Our idea of body hair maintenance is not having to deal with it on a daily basis; you have enough to worry about. Body hair should not be one of your worries! 

That said, we’re dedicated to ensuring you feel confident in your appearance. We offer laser hair removal in our NYC office, but we hope our blog can give people everywhere information that’ll help make them feel confident in their appearance.

One of the best ways to feel confident in your appearance? Having a healthy head of hair! Sleep heavily impacts your hair’s health by promoting stem cell activity that generates cells for hair growth. 

Maryam Tantawy, a director of innovation for a supplement focused on hair health, spoke to Mane Addicts about the role of sleep in hair health: “Sleep is critical for your body’s regenerative processes. All the cells in your body, including hair follicle cells, are repaired and regenerated during this time. Sleep also activates growth hormones and enzymes to build proteins essential for strong, healthy hair and proper growth. Lack of sleep not only stunts this time for growth and renewal but also weakens your immune system and ability to absorb nutrients needed to produce healthy hair. Without proper nutrient absorption, hair volume, shine, and condition are all compromised.” 

Does this sound familiar to you? Sleep is the best way for your body to repair, rejuvenate, and regenerate. It would be best if you kept your sleep schedule consistent to promote restorative and restful sleep that supports protein synthesis, enzyme release, and hormone production for hair health. 

How Does Sleep Impact Nail Health? 

You guessed it: a lack of sleep negatively impacts nail health. You might get between 7-9 hours of sleep every night but have trouble getting a restful, quality sleep. You could see this by looking at your nails! 

Amy Morris, a naturopathic nutritionist, spoke to Harper's Bazaar about identifying low-quality sleep by looking at your nails. She says, “Lack of sleep can be reflected in your nail health. Weak and dull nails can signify that you are not getting the optimum eight hours of sleep per night. If you know you're not sleeping well, try to identify why that is; are you anxious about something? Do you drink too much caffeine? Once you've identified the problem, you can start to find a solution."

You know that you need better sleep to promote skin, hair, and nail health — but where do you start? 

7 Ways to Get Better Sleep

Throughout this article, you’ve learned how sleep impacts your overall appearance. Now that you fully understand the mechanics behind sleep’s impact on your appearance, you can make adjustments to find a sleep routine that works for you. 

While everyone has their own sleep routine, you should follow these basic guidelines to get better sleep (which leads to healthier skin, nails, and hair): 

• Your sleep schedule should be consistent! Try to wake up and go to sleep around the same time.
• Expose yourself to natural light throughout the day. 
• Exercise during the day (not too close to bedtime, though). 
• Try to avoid going on your phone or computer an hour before bed! 
• Don’t drink caffeinated beverages after 3-4 PM. 
• Make your bedroom relaxing and comfortable. 
• Create a nighttime routine that makes you feel relaxed and cues your body to get ready for a restful night of sleep! 

We hope this article provided information that will help you take better care of your skin, hair, and nails — helping you feel more confident than ever before!