Transcription
Did you know that sleeping the wrong way can contribute to the appearance of wrinkles? In this video, I'll tell you how it happens and how to avoid it.
[Music]
Hello everyone, welcome to a new video. In today's video, I want to talk to you about a very interesting topic: sleep wrinkles. I hope I'm not unlocking a fear in any of you. Please don't hate me. It's all over, gentlemen, we have no escape. While the movements we make with our face are what determine the dominant pattern of wrinkles we will have, not all wrinkles are a product of the contraction of mimic muscles. Sleep wrinkles develop as a product of distortions created when the face is pressed against the surface on which we sleep, be it a hard, thin pillow or one of those soft, fat pillows. When we sleep face down or on our side, compression and stress forces are generated on the face, resulting in very typical facial distortions. These forces generated on the skin are capable of stimulating the appearance of a type of wrinkle called sleep wrinkles. These wrinkles, at first, when our skin is young and healthy, are transient; they disappear when we get out of bed. But over the years and with the repetition of these forces exerted on our skin, skin that over time becomes of lesser quality, these wrinkles can become permanent. Before continuing, if you like the content on my channel, don't forget to give this video a like, subscribe, and activate the notification bell so that YouTube alerts you every time there's a new video. And don't forget to follow me on Instagram either; you can find me as @siun.escala. And don't forget that I have a secondary channel that you might be interested in.
Now, when you're young, the truth is that you don't have permanent wrinkles, those types of wrinkles that are etched into the skin, whether you gesticulate or not. Instead, you have wrinkles that become evident when you make a facial movement. Some people gesticulate more than others, and these wrinkles are more evident. We all have that friend who seems to be moving a million muscles to smile or gesticulate or not.
[Music]
On the other hand, as I was saying, when you're young, sleep wrinkles disappear when you get up, when the force being exerted against the skin disappears. These wrinkles differ from expression wrinkles in their mechanism of origin, location, and the way they are distributed. To talk a bit about generalities, there are different ways to classify wrinkles. A very well-known classification divides them into different groups. In the first group, we have atrophic wrinkles; they are a product of atrophy of the extracellular matrix at the dermal level. They disappear when we stretch the skin and change depending on how we are lying or sitting. They are the typical wrinkles of adult people who, over time, lose skin tone. Then we have elastic wrinkles; these wrinkles appear in sun-exposed areas. They are a product of collagen degradation by the action of the sun's UVB rays. Those super young people who are sun fanatics and look much older than they really are, that friend who is the same age as you but looks like they could be your dad or uncle, well, their wrinkles could fall into this group. Then we have the group of expression wrinkles; these wrinkles appear due to the contraction of mimic muscles, as I said before. When you're young, these wrinkles disappear when you stop gesticulating. Over time, they become permanent due to a deterioration in skin quality and excessive gesticulation over time. Lastly, we have the group of gravitational wrinkles; these are wrinkles that form due to an external force acting on the skin, associated with the loss of its elasticity. The external force is gravity. They are typical wrinkles in older people.
And now, the part nobody wants to hear. Well, my dear, as we grow, the skin loses elasticity and hardens. This hardening is a product of the changes it undergoes with age. The collagen present in the dermis decreases, the quality of elastic fibers decreases, hyaluronic acid content decreases, and there is a decrease in water content. The sun hasn't helped as much as we'd like. As the skin ages and hardens, its response to external forces also changes. You know that skin is an elastic organ that deforms in response to external factors. When a force is applied to the skin, it deforms. Depending on how elastic the skin is, it can return to its original shape without suffering any damage or not. Adequate elasticity will allow the skin to recover its original shape without damage. You can imagine it's not the same to stretch the skin of a 75-year-old person as it is to stretch the skin of a 22-year-old. One will be able to recover and return to its original shape, and the other, not so much.
Let's talk specifically about sleep wrinkles then. So, it's being said that when we sleep on our side or face down, the facial tissue is subjected to compression and stretching. The skin is stretched and pulled in many senses and directions that change throughout the night depending on the position we adopt during sleep. If we think about the number of hours we sleep in our lives, we will realize the importance of these forces generated on the skin. I'm tired and worn out. I don't want to get up ever. An average head weighs about 4 kilos. Mine must weigh a bit more because I'm quite big-headed, but I said average. That doesn't fit me. Imagine those four kilos exerted on folded or stretched skin for several hours every day. Nothing good can come of that. When we sleep, we are capable of choosing the position in which we will sleep. Throughout the night, our body changes position several times, around 20 per night. That is, we can go to sleep on our back to avoid compressing the skin against the pillow, but I can assure you that in a while, you'll be face down or on your side, and you won't even realize it.
How can we identify sleep wrinkles? First, let's identify which wrinkles are the product of normal gesticulation. These wrinkles, when they appear, are generally small, superficial, and perpendicular to the muscle that is contracting, generating the movement. As we grow, we repeat these movements, and with the loss of elasticity and general skin quality that occurs with age, these wrinkles, which initially disappeared when we stopped gesticulating, become etched into the skin. They transform into what are known as static wrinkles. These, even if we don't gesticulate, the speed and intensity with which this happens are determined by genetics, sun exposure, habits, hormonal issues. Wrinkles produced by facial movements are very easy to recognize. We can reproduce them by moving the muscles. We move the muscle, and the wrinkle appears. We move the muscle, and the wrinkle appears. Sleep wrinkles do not appear when moving the muscle; they are reproducible by imitating the compression our face undergoes with the pillow while sleeping. This type of wrinkle usually forms around the eyes, around the nose, around the eyebrows. There are some that are more frequent, and you can see them here. Visually, they look like normal wrinkles, like any other. Obviously, some people will be more susceptible to developing this type of wrinkle. Genetics, habits, hormonal issues, lifestyles are all factors that will intervene in their appearance and development. How, you might be asking yourselves. Well, if we have, for example, poorly hydrated skin with little collagen because we smoke a lot or because we love being in the sun without protection, skin that has never touched a cream in its life, you can imagine it will take less effort to wrinkle under the pressure generated by the pillow. Remember also that this type of wrinkle is influenced by how much and how we sleep. If we sleep 12 hours a day, mostly on our side, we will probably have more chances of having this type of wrinkle.
We can see the exact moment when the heart breaks, and everything is very nice, very nice. We all fall into crisis and don't want to sleep on our side or face down anymore. What can we do to prevent these wrinkles from appearing? Unlike what happens with wrinkles related to muscle movements, for this type of wrinkle, the truth is that botulinum toxin and fillers are not very useful. The therapeutic possibilities are more limited. To begin with, it is recommended to try to sleep on your back so that the skin doesn't suffer so much compression and stretching. What's the problem with all this? What I told you a while ago: we are not capable of deciding in which position we will sleep all night. So, this, the truth is, won't be of much help since we cannot control the position in which we will sleep all night, and since we cannot stop sleeping, what can we do? First, improve the way we sleep. There are many studies that show that certain types of pillows could be useful for us to reduce the development of these types of forces that lead to wrinkles appearing on the skin. As I was saying, these pillows aim to reduce or avoid these compression or stretching forces. How do they work? As I said before, when we sleep on a regular pillow, the facial skin undergoes stretching or compression, inflammation occurs, and wrinkles form, which at first are transient but over the years become permanent. This type of special pillow reduces contact between the face and the pillow, ensuring that these forces that distort the normal architecture of the facial skin do not form or are less intense. There are many options for pillows of this type, but I'll show you the one I use, which is from the brand Sleep and Glow, the Omnium model. Other things that can help us prevent the appearance of this type of wrinkle are not smoking or using sunscreen, having a correct hydration and cleansing routine. You might be asking yourselves, what does all this have to do with sleep wrinkles? Well, let's say it's not the same to subject healthy skin to external forces that can modify it as it is to subject dry, aged skin with little collagen that breaks easily. If we cannot control the position in which we sleep, and we cannot buy a special pillow, and if obviously we cannot stop sleeping, we can maintain the healthiest possible skin so that it can face the forces that could alter it in the best possible way.
If you liked this video, please give it a like and share it. Tell me down in the comments if you knew about this type of wrinkle and if you do anything to avoid them. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel and activate the notification bell so that YouTube alerts you every time I upload a new video. And don't forget to follow me on Instagram either; you can find me as @siun.escala. And I'll see you in the next video.
[Music]