5 Tips to Help You Improve Your Beauty Sleep

Hi Beautiful!

Happy National Sleep Day! 

This is proof that beauty sleep is real!

I went to the doctor with Alex for his yearly checkup and thankfully his over-all health had improved with the change of his diet, however, there was one big elephant in the room... and it starts and ends with SLEEP! 

Our doctor recommended some tips for him to improve his SLEEP HYGIENE and I know a lot of other folks are struggling with this, too, so I thought I'd share these tips with you. 

What is sleep hygiene and why does it matter? 

Sleep hygiene uses a variety of different practices to help you form positive habits that are necessary to have good (nighttime) sleep quality so that it doesn't compromise your daytime alertness and awareness. 

Simply put, healthy sleep time is important for our over-all health and improves the quality of our life and skin (yep, I said skin...).

During Sleep, your skin and body has the opportunity to heal. Without that opportunity, we weaken our immune system.

Sleep deprivation affects your ability to produce collagen and can compromise our over-all skin hydration levels and skin texture. 

Inflammation is also higher when you don't sleep which can lead to making current skin conditions worse.

So when your skin needs a little extra love, we recommend using the Immortality Mask or Plump & Glow Gift Set to help hydrate and restore fatigued skin. 

Hyaluronic Acid, also in our Plump and Glow Kit, helps bring moisture up the cells of your skin which can plum and add volume, reducing the over-all appearance of fine lines, wrinkles and dark circles. 

To relieve puffy eyes try our Eye Dream of Coffee because it helps constrict blood vessels for the improvement of dark circles and puffiness!

Some ways I personally love to relax are to take hot epsom salt baths, use essential oils, such as lavender, on my skin, lie on my heating pad, listen to soft classical music, and light candles or sage to help get me into a mellow state of mind. 

And let's be real, we don't always have time for what we love to do, either!

But implementing a couple, or even one of the below sleep tips may help get you on the path to a better night's rest. 

Here are 5 tips to help you improve your sleep:

1) Limit daytime naps to 20-30 minutes.

2) Avoid caffeine or stimulants.. even one cup during the day can effect your sleep at night! 

3) Exercise to help you relieve stress and relax (do not exercise close to bed time). 

4) Establish a regular bedtime and do your best to stick to it (that's why we limit our naps, btw!).

5) Turn off ALL electronics an hour before bedtime and do not sleep with them by your bedside.

If you're addicted to that morning cup of joe, like so many of us, consider switching to half caff, then moving to a tea latte instead. 

Matcha's and green tea are honestly just as delicious and only 1/2 the amount of caffeine! 

If you don't have time to go to the gym or don't like them, a mini trampoline is a great, inexpensive way to get your blood circulating. 

Taking short walks around your neighborhood is a great way to get out of your busy head or to reduce anxiety, which is usually a symptom of stress that can be helped with movement. 

Whatever you do or don't do, I encourage you to try to find forward thinking solutions, instead of falling back on old, un-empowering mindsets of why you can't do something. 

A better choice of words would be, "I won't do that" or my new favorite, "I get to do that".

Micro-steps are the key.

Not that long ago, I started putting my phone on airplane mode (yes, your alarm will still work!) at a certain time so that I wouldn't fall into the distraction of endlessly checking my phone. 

Guess what? It works!! 

If you're doing all of the above and you still have problems sleeping, there could be something chemically imbalanced. 

Perhaps a shift in your diet and / or supplements may help. 

Some of my favorite supplements at night to help me relax are Calm and Clarity Mints and Magnesium.

Seeking the assistance from a holistic doctor or Integrative Health Practitioner can help you with these steps!

What are some of YOUR favorite ways to relax?? We'd love to know! Share it in our comments below! 

Remember, the more you know, the more you GROW. 

With so much love,

Jentri 

Photo by Burst