It has to do with your matrix and collagen.
Whether you’re a princess getting ready for the ball or a stay-at-home parent trying to look your best, getting enough rest can feel like the key to a good look. In fact, it may seem like a bit of magic. But getting your beauty sleep isn’t just a mystical thing- there’s some actual science behind it.
Biologists from the University of Manchester have discovered that as you go through your day, the thin fibrils of collagen in your body are constantly breaking. And they are only replenished when you sleep.
It’s a bit tricky. Your body is made up of what biologists call ‘matrix’ and ‘collagen’. The matrix is extracellular: your cartilage, bones and skin, for example.
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Your collagen, however, is present at a cellular level. And it’s made up of both thin and thick fibrils, which weave together to form your tissues.
When you sleep, the rest you get recharges your collagen, and allows your body to fix itself. When you don’t, broken collagen fibrils is part of what makes you look tired.
Said the study’s lead author, professor Karl Kadler, “…if you imagine the bricks in the walls of a room as the permanent part, the paint on the walls could be seen as the sacrificial part which needs to be replenished every so often…just like you need to oil a car and keep its radiator topped up with water, these thin fibrils help maintain the body’s matrix.”
So far, there doesn’t seem to be a way to fast-track getting your sleep. Kadler says he hopes the discovery will give scientists a better understanding of how we heal and age, however.
Nap time, anyone?
