Does a decent night’s sleep elude you night after night? Coincidentally, are you struggling to grow a full, thick beard? If you’ve answered “yes” to both, your difficulties in growing a beard may be anything but coincidental. You may be surprised to learn about the relationship between sleep quality and facial hair growth.
Sleep-Related Factors That Could Impact Facial Hair Growth
Restful sleep is essential to functioning well during the day and vital for your well-being. It’s no surprise that sleeping less or waking up multiple times per night takes its toll on how your body functions physically and how you cope mentally and psychologically in day-to-day situations. With your facial hair a physical part of your body, less sleep can lead to stunted beard growth.
So, what sleep-related factors can contribute to your facial hair growth?
1. Indoor Air Causes Sleep Disruptions
Do you have problems sleeping well in summer? Depending on where you live, warm, humid weather can mean tossing and turning all night long. Besides the indoor temperature, pet dander, pollen and dust mites can cause respiratory issues by attaching to your bed linens, putting peaceful sleep out of reach. Even if it doesn’t disrupt your sleep, poor indoor air quality can result in tiredness and fatigue during the day.
Living in a damp environment can lead to mold, which disrupts your sleep by causing congestion and irritating your eyes, nose and skin. Airborne mold particles are significant triggers for asthma attacks and other respiratory problems that can keep you awake most of the night in aggravated circumstances.
2. Insufficient Sleep Can Cause Skin Problems
Research shows that sleep disturbances impact skin diseases, but the direct correlation remains unclear. Sleeping allows your body to repair and rejuvenate, with collagen production, skin hydration and inflammation reduction among its recognized ways. Without time for these essential repair processes, you will likely be more susceptible to acne breakouts and other skin issues.
Skin inflammation restricts beard growth, and dryness causes flakiness, affecting facial hair growth. If you’re not sufficiently hydrated, your beard hair also becomes more brittle and susceptible to breaking. While shaving with a traditional razor can alleviate these symptoms, you’ll likely want to incorporate top-rate beard care products like a beard wash and beard oil to revitalize your facial hair — and get enough sleep so your body can naturally repair your skin and hair.
3. Stress Levels Affect Sleep
According to Cleveland Clinic, stress-related sleep deprivation can cause a decrease in beard growth. Backed by a 1987 study of 10 men, the reputable health care provider states stress is a primary factor of hair loss, specifying beard growth as being among the hair types affected when coupled with poor sleeping habits and quality.
Genetics, ethnicity, diet and alopecia areata — your immune system’s resistance to hair follicles — are also factors Cleveland Clinic attributes to facial hair loss in men. It is well-known that stress contributes to many human body changes, with poor or interrupted sleep patterns often an indirect effect.
Stress plays another role in stunting facial hair growth during those unwanted poor sleep periods. During highly stressful periods, your body releases more cortisol. This hormone is healthy in small amounts, but its positive input changes in response to chronic stress. Excessive hormones could cause skin conditions like acne and, worse still, can reduce your body’s testosterone to the detriment of your beard growth.
4. Poor Sleep Reduces Testosterone Levels
While the Cleveland Clinic is reluctant to name low testosterone levels as a factor contributing to declining facial hair growth, the Sleep Foundation suggests that regular sleep debt, or sleep deficit — when you begin falling short of your accustomed hourly sleep duration — commonly causes metabolic dysregulation.
A 2019 study indicates that metabolic disorders combined with low testosterone levels through hypogonadism can lead to higher risks of further incident development. Male hypogonadotropic hypogonadism, according to the Mayo Clinic, is a condition where male bodies don’t generate enough testosterone, with the condition existing from puberty or developing later in life, often due to infection or injury.
With sleep debt contributing to metabolic disorders, the presence of male hypogonadotropic hypogonadism could lead to increased risks of facial hair loss through reduced testosterone levels. Your inadequate sleep patterns may be unrelated to stress, but they can still contribute to falling testosterone levels in specific situations.
5. Better Sleep Encourages Physical Exercise
The better you sleep, the more likely you’ll feel like waking up early for a gym session before work or a jog at dusk after a hard office day. How does exercising affect beard growth, though? Research indicates that testosterone levels rise for periods between 15 and 60 minutes after physical exercise, but regular fitness routines four times weekly result in more stable and permanent testosterone increases.
You already know that poor sleep could reduce your testosterone count, but raising it, especially with consistent weight and resistance workouts, will invariably result in better facial hair growth. So, if you’re struggling to grow a beard, concentrate on your deadlifts, squats, bench presses and resistance bands next time you visit the gym — of course, these exercises also have other benefits besides testosterone growth.
Moreover, adding a healthy diet to your training regimen will reduce the chances of diabetes and other factors that could cause metabolic imbalances that affect sleep patterns. When you exercise regularly, sleep will come easier at the end of the day, and your facial hair growth will benefit.
How to Sleep Better
When attempting to improve your beard growth, you can try improving your sleep patterns in several ways.
- Maintain a regular sleep cycle: Discipline yourself to go to bed and wake up at the same time throughout the week. Avoid sleeping in on weekends.
- Limit your daytime naps: If you must rest your eyes, keep breaks to a maximum of 20 minutes after lunch. Long daytime naps can hamper your sleep at night.
- Have a nutritious breakfast: Eating a morning meal will condition your body to wake up at a specific time, creating a daily pattern. Missing breakfast means your energy lowers as your blood sugar drops, which alone can hamper sleep patterns.
- Control your light exposure: Spend time in natural light during the day, but avoid screen time and late-night television for a few hours before bedtime. Limit exposure to light when sleeping for a less hampered period in dreamland.
- Exercise: Daily workouts will improve your sleep quality, but avoid strenuous routines three hours before you sleep. Light yoga stretches are perfect for relaxing before you turn in.
- Eat and drink wisely: Eating too many carbohydrates and sugars at any time can impact your sleep quality, as they promote wakefulness. Caffeine can create sleep disturbances for up to 12 hours after consumption, so choose another beverage in the evening and before bed. Only eat big meals and drink alcohol in the early evening. Reduce your liquid content at night, especially if you have a weak bladder.
These are only some ways to encourage better sleep. A light, healthy snack in a quiet, darkened room before bed can help you wind down, and breathing exercises when lying in your comfortable bed may help you fall asleep. Some people enjoy white noise like nature sounds to calm their minds and enhance relaxation. Whatever you do, set worries and problem-solving aside until tomorrow.
Achieve Restful Sleep to Enhance Facial Hair Growth
Evidence suggests that sleeping peacefully for long enough could improve your beard growth. De-stressing and falling asleep in a peaceful, dark environment after an early evening workout could enhance your chances of growing that full beard you’ve always dreamed of.