The Night Shift

Prioritising sleep can translate to real skin benefits come morning. Here’s how to get the most out of your beauty sleep – and why you should change your skincare routine for the wee hours.

- Sally Hunwick

Sleep, and how much we’re clocking up each night, has become a modern-day obsession. But instead of tucking ourselves into bed to get the seven to eight hours’ slumber the experts recommend, we are cramming more activity into our day and budgeting our rest to fit it all in.

If you don’t feel as though you are getting enough pillow time, you’re not alone. “Studies indicate one in three people will suffer a sleep problem at some time in their lives,” explains Dr Carmel Harrington, sleep expert at Sleep for Health.

If scrolling through your Insta feed seems like more fun than hitting the hay by 10pm, we hear you. The issue is, if you regularly lose out on Zs, you will deprive your body of its only chance to repair and restore.

“Sleep is vitally important to our physical health,” says Dr Harrington. “Without it, we are susceptible to infections and more likely to develop certain cancers, as well as heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Obesity is also linked to a lack of shut-eye.”

Our skin is affected, too. “Sleep deprivation is associated with many dramatic consequences for the skin,” explains clinical naturopath Cassandra Hilton. “These include diminished skin barrier function and oxidative stress.”