Lack of sleep makes you stupid and ugly!

Welcome to the weekly newsletter "SkinCare 3.0-From Zero To Hero," where you will find tips and tools backed by science to make an excellent first impression and to have personal and professional success! You can subscribe to my newsletter here, and you will have weekly the latest news!

Today we will talk about sleep, especially the lack of sleep, and how this aspect deeply and fundamentally influences our personal, professional, and social life!

Here's something we can both agree on: we need sleep. Why? Because sleep is an essential homeostatic process with well-established effects on an individual's physiological, cognitive, and behavioral functionality and long-term health.

In a previous article, namely "Do you know your secret essential MVP?" I presented some elements related to the impact of sleep, and especially the lack of sleep, on the health and beauty of the skin, and I showed that sleep is the MVP of our lives both in terms of Most Valuable Player and Minimum Viable Product!

Please let me explain the title a bit! Although the title seems counterintuitive and similar to a sensational tabloid headline, recent research has shown the profound and devastating impact of sleep deprivation and the fact that lack of sleep has profound effects on many lines of our lives!

I'll start with an article published in The Wall Street Journal, with an inspiring title, "Sleep Is the New Status Symbol For Successful Entrepreneurs," that directly links sleep to a status of success!

On the other hand, in the prestigious magazine "Harvard Business Review" the article "Sleep Deficit: The Performance Killer" was published, and the title of this article leaves no doubt - lack of sleep is the shadow killer of our professional life and a real saboteur of our career!

Do you know the real meaning of the words "You look tired!"? Do you know what lies behind these words?

So what's my point? Sleep deprivation's impact is now associated with an increased risk for many chronic diseases, such as hypertension, diabetes mellitus, obesity, cardiovascular disease, depression, and even cancer.

The consequences of unhealthy sleep, including the risk of chronic diseases, productivity loss, and fatigue-related performance concerns, have been described as a critical public health problem.

Ever noticed what sleep-deprived people look like? Sleep-deprived people appear less healthy, less attractive, and more tired than when they are well-rested. Let me lift the veil for you. Humans are sensitive to sleep-related facial cues, potentially impacting social and clinical judgments and behavior.

Don't you hate it when somebody says that you look tired? Telling someone, they look tired reveals more about your perception of them than you might think. A sleep-deprived tired-looking face, with dark circles under the eyes and swollen eyelids, is perceived as less attractive and less healthy.

Since humans tend to ascribe positive qualities to people considered attractive, especially interpersonal qualities such as sociability and interpersonal competence, you may even suggest that you are less interested in being around the tired-looking person. Furthermore, you might be making the right decision; sleep-deprived individuals report being less optimistic and friendly (1). They are worse at understanding and expressing emotions (2), less empathetic (3), and more prone to accidents (4).

Before we go any further, you must learn and accept that inadequate sleep is correlated with reduced skin health and accelerates skin aging; partial sleep deprivation, like total sleep deprivation, makes people appear less attractive and less healthy. On the other hand, lack of sleep directly affects our work life, both directly and indirectly, by reducing the efficiency and productivity of the teams you are a part of!

What do we have to do?

Which is the solution?

Let's prioritize qualitatively and quantitatively sleep as an essential and fundamental tool for our personal and professional lives!

#sleep #health #beauty #productivity #mvp #MostValuablePlayer #MinimumViableProduct

 Bibliography:

1.   Haack, M., and J.M. Mullington. "Sustained sleep restriction reduces emotional and physical well-being". Pain 119, 2005, pp. 56–64.

2.   Van der Helm, E., Gujar, N., and M.P. Walker. "Sleep deprivation impairs the accurate recognition of human emotions". SLEEP 33, 2010, pp. 335–42.

3.   Guadagni, V., Burles, F., Ferrara, M., and G. Iaria. "The effects of sleep deprivation on emotional empathy". J. Sleep Res. 23, 2014, pp. 657–63.

4.   Kecklund, G., and J. Axelsson. "Health consequences of shift work and insufficient sleep". BMJ 355, 2016, i5210.