Sleep Wrinkles - Preventing and Repairing Them

As we age, the appearance of sleep wrinkles, those facial lines that develop from sleeping with your face against a pillow, becomes much more prominent.  This should come as no surprise if you consider how much of one’s life is spent sleeping.  If you are getting the recommended 8 hours of sleep per night, you sleep 1/3 of your life.  Consequently, by age 60, you will have slept 20 years.  It is obvious why sleeping on our face eventually leads to creases that become permanently etched in the surface of the skin.  Sleep wrinkles are much easier to prevent than they are to repair.  As a result, you should make every effort to keep from getting them in the first place.

The most effective and least costly method for preventing sleep wrinkles is to sleep on your back.  People who sleep in this position simply do not develop these wrinkles.  Chinese women recognized this fact ages ago, and always slept on their backs using concave porcelain pillows.  If you are unaccustomed to sleeping in this position, you might try placing a pillow under you knees to decrease stress on the lower back and increase your comfort.

If you are unable to sleep on your back, using a pillow that minimizes facial wrinkling is another possibility.  Sleep on a big, soft, non-synthetic pillow that you are able to fluff and squish.  Those with natural fill, such as down and feathers, offer the most comfort, long-term performance, and adjustability.  This type of pillow supports the head while providing softness, eliminating pressure points, and increasing facial circulation to reduce squashing and sleep wrinkles.  There are also pillows available made specifically for preventing sleep wrinkles.  They support the head while keeping the face and eye tissue away from the pillow.

Choosing the correct pillowcase on which to sleep can also deter the formation of sleep creases.  If you awaken with these unsightly lines in the morning, your cotton pillowcase may be to blame.  Instead of cotton, sleep on a silk or satin pillowcase that allows your face to slide across the pillow thereby minimizing skin wrinkling.  Another option for not only preventing sleep lines, but also repairing those which you already have, is to use a copper technology pillowcase.   It is imbedded with copper micro fibers which serve to repair your skin as you sleep.  Copper has been proven to stimulate collagen production thereby helping reduce the appearance of lines and wrinkles.

Unfortunately, if you already have sleep wrinkles, they may be difficult to alleviate.  As we age, our skin loses its elasticity.  When the skin becomes creased while sleeping, it no longer readily snaps back when the head is not resting on the pillow, as it did when we were younger.  Since these wrinkles are not the result of muscle contractions, such as worry lines or crow’s feet, products with Botox-like benefits are ineffective.  In order to correct them, new collagen needs to form under the wrinkles to push up the skin from below.  There are many skin care products on the market that contain various peptides that promote the formation of collagen.  If topical formulations are ineffective, you might want to consult your dermatologist about a wrinkle filler such as Restylane.