Hello from Fiji! Now is a great time to talk about skin care and sleep, because my sleeping patterns have been totally disrupted by preparing to leave Australia for 6 months, and now starting to settle into a new country for a few days before I leave for another one 
So everyone says that if you don’t get enough sleep at night, it will shown on your skin AND it can give you more acne. I always took this ‘fact’ with a grain of salt because let’s be realistic - things happen in life and we can’t always get a full eight hours of sleep a night. That was until the universe …or something bigger than me anyway …decided to force me into doing a sleep and skin experiment without me even wanting to do one.
If you’re a regular reader of my blog, then you’ll know that I’ve been moving around a lot. A month before I started my overseas journey, I left my beautiful one bedroom apartment to stay with a friend in preparation for travel. My apartment was part of a large complex in the city so it was quite noisy and people in my area had a lot of parties so my sleep was often disturbed. So moving to my friends house, 20 minutes drive out of the city, was like a mini vacation for me. The suburbs were so peaceful. His house is built on old farmland so there is still a lot of nature around. I found myself getting 8-10 hours of solid sleep a night. I hadn’t slept that well in years. And you know what else? My skin started to get a lot better. Not straight away, not magically overnight ..but after 3 weeks it was looking better than it had in a very, very long time. In fact, one morning I woke up with only one very small emerging pimple, and a few old red scars. That was it. Hallelujah! There is something to this sleeping thing after all.
AND THEN, all of a sudden it was a few days before I had to leave for overseas and I started to stress out a little. Okay, stress out a lot. Leaving Australia knowing that I’ll be away for at least six months was quite a confronting thought, and it took a lot of yoga and preparation to keep my stress levels down, but, I stopped sleeping well. In fact, I was only getting a few hours a night. And so what do you think happened? You guessed it - my skin starting to look a little dull at first, and kind of tired looking, and then I got a few more spots than usual. So I guess to get straight to the point - I’ve realised that there is a lot to this sleep and skin thing, and getting a good nights sleep, every night, does make a huge difference.
For those who have trouble sleeping …
I’m an insomniac from wayyyy back. I’ve had trouble sleeping at night for as long as I can remember. I just hit the jackpot for those few weeks that I was staying with my friend and sleeping really well.
There are a few things that have worked really well for me over the few years to beat insomnia. If you have trouble sleeping too, you might want to give a couple a go -
- Only go to bed when you’re tired. If you try to go to sleep when you’re not tired yet, you’ll just toss and turn for ages. Unless of course you’re one of those magical sleeping people, but you probably wouldn’t be reading this if you were!
- Regular bed times help a lot. When I stick to some sort of routine and go to bed around the same time every night, I always sleep better.
- Don’t look at the clock. Clocks really stress me out, so I don’t wear a watch and I never keep a clock in my bedroom. I go to sleep when I’m tired, and I wake up when I’m ready. I never had a problem when I had to get up to go to work, I’d just tell myself to wake up at whatever time, and that was when I’d wake up.
Natural herbal remedies have been very helpful for me, and I choose ones that are non-addictive. My favorites are Blackmores Tranquil Nights, and Bach Rescue Sleep. They really help me sleep.- Avoid caffeine after 3pm. I know it sounds so early, but seriously, I cannot have any caffeine after 3pm. I don’t even like to drink green tea after this time.
- Do a meditation or relaxation before you go to sleep. This one works miracles. When I was at my most stressed time in my life, every night before I went to bed I lit some candles, burned some relaxing oils, and put on some beautiful music. Sometimes I listened to it meditation style - cross legged on the floor with a straight spine, and sometimes lying in bed. But either way I was always half asleep by the end of it and I’d fall asleep so quickly.
Steve Pavlina has written an awesome article on how to become an early rise, which includes tips on how to sleep better. If you suffer from having trouble with sleeping, this is definitely a good article to read.
Happy sleeping!!
Fran
Fran Kerr is the founding editor of High on Health. To cure your acne, sign up to Fran's FREE acne cure mini-course or download her latest how to guide, Eat Away Your Acne.
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I love reading your posts by the way! Before I go to bed I like to warm up my muscles and then stretch a few of them. It helps me.
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