In today’s article I’m going to be sharing with you some simple hacks that you can implement into your everyday life that will help in diminishing the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.
I’m not talking about getting rid of wrinkles permanently. We all know there are fantastic cosmetic procedures out there that can really help reduce the appearance of wrinkles. And of course prevention is best.
The tips I’m going to give you in today’s article are simple things that you can put into place that will help reduce the prominence of those little fine lines.
What I’m talking about is when you have been working too much, you’re fatigued, you’re over tired and you haven’t been sleeping well. And for whatever reason, your skin appears more wrinkled than normal.
Maybe it’s drier and when you go and put on makeup or sunscreen, it settles in those creases and it makes you look wiser 🙂
Table of Contents
1. Change Your Pillowcase
The first simple thing that you might try and remedy in order to improve these little fine wrinkles is switch out your pillowcase.
If you are sleeping on a pillowcase that is like made of flannel or jersey, these fabrics are rough on your skin and are more likely to crease your skin.
Instead choose either silk or satin. I know silk is really expensive but it’s my preference. I think it’s nice to invest in it up front and then you don’t have to buy as many pillowcases down the road. But satin is definitely a good alternative.
The nice thing about these fabrics is that they’re smooth on the skin and they don’t absorb products. They’re also really good on your hair. They don’t lead to frizz or breakage. It’s another reason why I like using these fabrics over cotton or jersey.
So switching out your pillowcase to that type of fabric can definitely make a difference. Make sure your pillowcase is clean and you wash them frequently.
At nighttime, we actually lose more water out of our skin than we do during the day. Our skin’s going through a lot. It’s trying to recover from the day as we sleep
The skin barrier is more prone to losing water. So we’re more susceptible to water loss from the skin.
Silk and satin materials don’t absorb moisture like cotton or jersey fabrics or flannel do. They’re less likely to suck out moisture from your skin, which can further exacerbate the appearance of those little subtle wrinkles.
Likewise, those types of fabrics are a better choice for your hair. Not only for reducing friction and breakage on the hair shafts, but for keeping the hair hydrated.
Why Are Silk Pillowcases Good For Skin?
2. Sleep on Your Back
The next tip is try and train yourself to sleep on your back.
If you sleep on your back, you are not going to be squishing your face into the pillow, like a stomach sleeper. It’s also just better for breathing at night as you sleep to be on your back.
You may prefer to sleep on your side and that’s fine. You just need to use a pillow that is designed with the side concavities that cradle the face so you’re not squished up against the pillow.
But ideally, try and train yourself to sleep on your back. I actually did that several years ago and it’s made a huge difference in my sleep overall.
A good tip for training yourself to sleep on your back is to actually put some pillows underneath your knees. That way it keeps your back in a more comfortable position for sleep and it makes you less likely to roll over onto your stomach.
3. Avoid Resting Your Face on Your Hands
My next tip is to try and avoid resting your face on your hands. We all know we should not be touching our face, especially during the day, but many of us have acquired a little habit of leaning on your hands or resting your hand on your chin.
Also a lot of people who sleep on their side put their hands under the face.
Your hand ends up tugging on your skin a lot and creating creasing and wrinkling that will stay there for a while after you remove your hand.
So try and not touch your face during the day. It’s obviously good to not touch your face for hand hygiene reasons. But at night time, a lot of people inadvertently rest on their hand.
Have you ever woken up the following morning and you have an imprint of your hand on the side of your face. That has definitely happened to me before.
Try and break that habit. If you are a side sleeper, maybe position your hand underneath the pillow to prevent you from doing that.
4. Elevate Your Pillow
Another sleep tip for mitigating the appearance of wrinkles and fine lines is to try and elevate the head of the bed a little bit or elevate your pillow.
Using an insert can help with elevating the pillow to keep your head just slightly elevated at an angle.
The reason this is so good for your skin is that it just facilitates fluid drainage from your head and neck down to your heart with sleep. When you wake up in the morning, you have less puffiness. With decreased puffiness you’re going to have less prominent furrowing and wrinkling of the skin.
So that’s another hack to just elevate the pillow or the head of the bed ever so slightly to improve that drainage from the head and neck.
5. Use Firm Pillow
Another sleep tip for side sleepers is to make sure that your pillow is firm.
A lot of people end up sleeping on old, worn out pillows that aren’t very supportive. And if you’re a side sleeper, sleeping on a glorified sack of a pillow that’s deflated is going to press on your skin a lot and exacerbate the appearance of those morning sleep wrinkles.
So make sure that your pillow is firm and supportive.
6. Use Sleep Mask
The next thing you might want to introduce to improve the look of those fine wrinkles, especially around the eyes, is to try sleeping with a silk or satin sleep mask.
These are helpful because they keep the skin around the eyes in place at night and reduce frictional forces and compression and creasing of the skin around the eyes.
Even if you are a solid back sleeper, you do turn your head from side to side. Maybe you get up at night and reposition yourself a bit to resume sleep comfortably, you’re gonna end up creasing the skin around your eyes.
If you have a sleep mask on, it will reduce that tension on the skin and reduce tugging from fabrics.
It also blocks out light, meaning you get better quality sleep. If you happen to be in a room where there is a little bit of light, it’s going to activate your brain to wake up.
I personally really enjoy having a sleep mask.
Try and get eight hours of sleep. That is ideal for recovering your body and your skin and just regenerating everything and reducing the burden of inflammation throughout the body. It’s key for longevity, it’s key for memory.
The eight hours is a magic window. I definitely notice a difference in my mood, the way I look, the way I feel, the way I function.
7. Wear a Moisturizer at Nighttime
Make sure that you wear a moisturizer at nighttime. This is so important because your skin has a lot of work to do at night. It’s recovering from all of the free radical damage from throughout the day. A lot of hormones are coming into the skin and signaling things for repair and recovery.
What ends up happening is that you lose more water out of the skin and that leads to dryness. If you don’t wear a moisturizer at nighttime to bed, when you wake up the following morning, you’ve lost all this water out of the skin. Especially in the very early hours, you tend to lose a lot more water out of the skin.
That’s going to leave you looking more wrinkled when you get up.
8. Use Silicone Face Patches
Another little hack for just reducing the appearance of those fine lines and wrinkles is to try the silicone face patches.
These are not going to remove wrinkles permanently, they’re not a cure for wrinkles. But the way they work is by creating a physical seal to trans epidermal water loss, keeping the hydration in the stratum corneum in the epidermis, helping those skin cells stay hydrated and plump.
That’s ultimately going to reduce the depth of those little fine wrinkles and lines that are so prominent in the morning.
I love doing them around my eyes. They’re also fantastic for neck wrinkles.
Nice thing about silicone patches is that they’re medical grade silicone, which means that they are safe to be used for medical applications, like in the treatment of scars.
That is not something that causes irritation on the skin and it is bio-compatible with the skin, so it doesn’t tug at your skin when you remove the patches.
9. Stay Hydrated
My last tip for reducing those wrinkles and fine lines is to make sure that you are hydrated.
It’s kind of a misconception that if you drink water, somehow that’s key for having clear skin and better skin.
Overall drinking a ton of water is not necessary. However, if you are dehydrated, it is going to show up in the form of fine lines and wrinkles .
A lot of people might not stay hydrated enough throughout the day and then when we sleep, we’re not taking in fluids. So if you go to bed at night with total body water low, and then you go throughout the night without taking in a drink, you’re going to wake up looking more dry and dehydrated.
I’m not saying to be drinking water all night. That will keep you up all night. But be mindful during the day that you are taking in enough fluids. That doesn’t necessarily have to be pounding water. It can be in the form of hydrating foods, like fruits and vegetables, which are also rich in antioxidants that are going to help with battling free radicals.
Those are my hacks for sleep and bedtime routine that you can put into place to really help reduce the appearance of those little pesky wrinkles that plague us first thing in the morning.
Rebecca is a licensed aesthetician and certified laser technician with almost 15 years experience in the dermatology. Her life-long passion is making people look good and happy.