Many people imagine their perfect wedding day when they're growing up — from gowns to veils to floral arrangements, they daydream about every detail that will make their once-in-a-lifetime event very special.
Years later, the reality of marrying your fiancé will come true. After this long period of wedding planning, your big day is fast approaching along with many tasks that can make this time stressful.
One very important detail that cannot be overlooked is getting your much-needed beauty sleep the weeks, and especially days, leading to your wedding.
Too Much to Do – Can't Sleep Wait?
You may be thinking that you can catch up on rest when the wedding is over and you're sitting on a beach in Tahiti during your honeymoon. Unfortunately, it's not that easy. If you're not getting enough sleep for even two days in a row, you may not look as beautiful and attractive to others based on a new study out of England.
In the study, a group of students deprived their bodies of rest by getting only four hours of sleep each night, and then they had a few good nights of healthy sleep. Each morning, a photographer snapped a picture of their faces without makeup or any photo touch-ups.
Afterwards, anonymous strangers were asked to evaluate the attractiveness, health and trustworthiness of the young adults by only seeing photos of the students' faces based on how much sleep they got the night before. What did researchers learn?
Beauty Sleep Is Real
They found out that when sleep suffers, people look tired and are consistently rated to be less attractive. The student’s lack of sleep was obvious to observers, even though they were just looking at a simple photograph.
The main physical areas affected by lack of sleep are:
- Dark circles (or bags) underneath the eyes and swollen eyelids
- Increased redness of skin tone
- Increased acne and blemishes
- More pronounced wrinkles
Interestingly, the researchers also learned that people view beauty as something more than skin deep. Participants said that they were less likely to want to socialize with people who look sleep-deprived and even said that they were probably less healthy than people who had gotten a full night of healthy rest.
This indicates that a person’s relational qualities, like friendliness and sociability, are a strong component of their overall level of attractiveness. Body language -- like smiling and making eye contact when you’re talking to someone – is just as important as any physical attribute. On your wedding day, you want to be able to fully engage in those special moments with your loved ones, and it’s going to be impossible to be the most beaming bride you can be if you’re exhausted and running on insufficient sleep.
Preparing for the Big Day
There’s not much that makeup can do to prevent those dark circles under your eyes from showing up in all of your treasured photographs, and there’s definitely not anything a stylist can do to improve an irritable mood.
To make sure that you’re ready for the big day, try to establish a healthy sleep routine weeks ahead of time. Take a look at these simple steps you can take to fall asleep faster and get the beauty rest you need.
Most importantly, you want to feel energized and your very best as the beautiful bride, so that you can celebrate long into the night with friends, family and your husband-to-be.
