Issue link: https://www.ascpskindeepdigital.com/i/834468
www.ascpskincare.com 65 SECRET AGER #3: LACK OF SLEEP Doctors are now prescribing sleep as a regimen instead of drugs. We need 7–8 hours of sleep each night for the body to be restored fully at the cellular level. There's a reason doctors tell patients to get plenty of rest when they're recouping from illness, procedures, or even when they have too much psychological stress. Sleep deprivation's links to devastating health eff ects such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke, high blood pressure, cancer, and obesity are well-documented. Dermatologically speaking, sleeplessness causes an overabundance of glucocorticoids (hormones that include cortisol) to circulate freely in the bloodstream, damaging every kind of tissue in the body and speeding up the aging processes. These hormones literally break down skin. Sleep is also important for human growth hormone production, which helps us maintain muscles, bone health, and resilient skin. Consider that our greatest period of collagen formation occurs when we sleep. Disruption in sleep makes skin age quickly as tone, fi rmness, and elasticity are all aff ected. In addition, insomniacs have reduced infl ammatory signaling interleukin-1, a key component of our skin's immunity response to foreign invaders such as bacteria. At the same time, sleeplessness makes skin fl ares more likely as depleted sleep encourages infl ammation. In other words, sleep loss causes the body to react disproportionately—creating either too much or too little infl ammation. The solution? Get some sleep!