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Why You Should be Using Sleeping Masks Every Night

Would you believe that a small piece of fabric that covers your eyes can create a huge difference with life-saving benefits? We are pushing ourselves harder than ever to stay competitive in this fast-paced world. This has severely deteriorated our sleep quality.

While there are many high-tech sleep gadgets available such as fancy lights, white noise, pad sensors, etc., the sleep masks are the clear winners in terms of simplicity and effectiveness.

A sleep mask enables you to experience sound quality slumber of 7-8 hours a night.

By wearing a sleep mask, you can maintain natural sleep cycles. It effectively blocks the light and allows you to catch up on deep sleep that is getting elusive due to our modern lifestyle.

This article explores why wearing sleep masks are immensely beneficial for our sleep and health in general.

A sleep mask promises a better night’s sleep as it blocks out the artificial light. This provides welcome relief for your eyes and helps in maintaining the required hormone balance. However, consider various factors like material, shape, weight, and size before you pick a sleep mask.

To experience sound sleep and various other health benefits of a sleep mask, you need to choose one that feels comfortable on your eyes. A high-quality sleep mask aids in falling asleep quickly without causing any issues or irritation.

Improves Your Sleep Quality 

A sleep mask is meant for improving sleep quality. The retina of the eyes has light-sensitive cells that determine our sleep patterns and inform our brain about the daytime or nighttime.

If you try to sleep early but remains exposed to light, you can’t enjoy the benefits of sleeping early. It happens because of the light-sensitive cells. Putting on a sleep mask results in deeper quality sleep and higher levels of sleep-inducing melatonin hormone in the body.

Blocks out Harmful Light

Our eyes are exposed to blue light throughout the day as we stare at our computer screens, smartphones, televisions, and display screens of other digital gadgets. This blue light offers many benefits during the daytime, like improving attention time, moods, and reaction time.

However, exposure to blue light presents many concerns at night as it reduces the secretion of sleep-inducing melatonin hormone and serves as a massive sleep disruptor. Eventually, it proves to be damaging to our health.

During the study conducted by the researchers at Harvard, the 6.5 hours of exposure to the blue and green light were compared, keeping the same brightness levels.

The study results showed that blue light shifted circadian rhythm and suppressed melatonin twice as much as a green light.

Relieves Eye Conditions

If you are experiencing eye issues like styes, dry eyes, or gland issues, wearing an eye mask while sleeping helps treat it. Sleeping with masks prevents drying and itching in the eyes. It provides effective relief from dry eye symptoms in the morning.

The sleep masks create a seal between the skin surrounding the eyes to prevent moisture from escaping and avoid the dust, drafts, and low humidity air from going in. A sleep mask brings welcome relief for individuals who suffer from incomplete eyelid closure.

Great Sleeping Companion During Travelling 

The sleeping masks come in handy during travel so that you can enjoy high-quality sleep during your travel in a heavily lit aeroplane or stay in a hotel room without blackout curtains. Thus, sleeping with masks helps you to avoid detrimental effects on your sleep.

Moreover, the sleeping masks can be easily carried in your travel bag due to their small size and immense portability. A sleeping mask serves as an excellent sleeping companion as it keeps you cold in the summer and warm in the winter.

Many travellers prefer sleeping masks as they provide enhanced comfort, improved sleep quality, and efficient blackout.

Makes You Fall Asleep Quickly 

Don’t we all love to fall asleep as soon as we lay in bed? A poor sleep quality results in tossing and turning in the bed and leaves you struggling for experiencing sound sleep.

Putting on a sleep mask significantly reduces the time spent lying awake and causes you to embrace sleep quickly in bed.

This happens because the darkness improves melatonin levels in the body, resulting in falling asleep much quickly compared to sleeping without wearing a sleep mask.

Saves Your Life 

Investing in a sleep mask offers numerous life-saving benefits. Sleeping with a mask ensures efficient blackout leading to total darkness. This causes the body to secrete high melatonin hormone levels that significantly reduce the risk of deadly diseases.

The increased melatonin hormone levels serve as an effective antioxidant and protect your DNA against various factors like ageing, exposure to harmful sun rays and cancer-causing chemicals. Thus, wearing a sleep mask may protect DNA and avoids diseases like cancer.

Keeps You Relaxed

As per few scientific studies, the power of touch boosts one’s sleep quality. It happens because ‘deep touch pressure’ stimulation increases the release of the chemical serotonin, responsible for regulating sleep.

Some advanced sleeping masks apply gentle pressure on your face and exert calming influence resulting in comfortable sleep. Wearing such masks helps you to stay more relaxed and keeps your anxiety levels in check.

Moreover, the microbeads present in sleeping masks shape your face gently for providing amazing light blocking experience.

Improves Mental Health 

Wearing a sleep mask works great for improving mental health in individuals suffering from depression and as per the study, sleeping in complete darkness reduces the symptoms of depression effectively.

The results of the above study conducted on Japanese adults indicated that individuals exposed to more than five lux light during sleep were more likely to show depressive symptoms than those sleeping in complete darkness.

Takes Care of Your Skin 

Choosing a suitable sleep mask also helps you to improve your skin. As you enjoy deep slumber for at least 7-8 hours, your skin health will improve and begin to appear youthful. It happens because sleep masks help fight the signs of ageing.

Wear a silk sleep mask as it comes packed with plentiful natural proteins that rejuvenate your skin. Moreover, a silk sleep mask controls moisture, regulates body temperature, and feels smooth and soft against your skin.

The mulberry sleep masks work great for sensitive skin as they contain a protein known as sericin that prevents allergic reactions.

We need a minimum of 7-9 hours of sleep every night for ensuring physical and mental well-being. If you are deprived of good quality sleep, it may lead to detrimental effects on your health.

Thus, you must take various measures for blocking the light at night. Wearing a sleep mask is an ideal cost-effective way for reaping the health benefits of sound sleep at night.

Let’s understand the health benefits of deeper sleep.

Improved REM Sleep

Wearing a sleep mask during sleep provides improved REM sleep with shorter REM latency, increased REM time, and higher levels of melatonin in individuals compared to sleeping without a sleep mask.

Thus, sleeping with a sleep mask promotes hormone balance and improves healthy sleep patterns. This allows you to experience deeper and rejuvenating sleep and leaves you feeling refreshed on waking up.

Reduce Risks of Diseases

When you enjoy deeper sleep, your body gets enough rest to recover itself. This results in marked improvement in various aspects of your health, productivity, and functioning of the body.

On the contrary, sleep problems are linked with an increased risk of unhealthy conditions like chronic heart diseases and, in some cases, accelerate the risk for Alzheimer’s disease. Moreover, poor sleep also contributes to other health risks like diabetes and cardiovascular issues.

Helps You to Avoid Obesity

If you get deeper sleep regularly, you can manage your weight and avoid being obese. Conversely, when people get poor sleep of fewer than 7 hours every night, it leads to changes in their body weight and adversely affects their body metabolism.

Moreover, poor quality sleep also affects the levels of the hunger hormones, including leptin and ghrelin. Thus, if you haven’t slept well, you are likely to get more hunger pangs.

Boosts Immunity

Enjoying a more profound slumber of 7-8 hours helps in boosting immune functions. Conversely, individuals who sleep for less than 7 hours or miss sleep are shown to have reduced immunity, and they are at increased risks of getting infections like colds.

Enhance Brain Functionality

The deeper sleep of approx 7-8 hours per night gives ample time to your brain to rest and recover. Moreover, good-quality deeper sleep improves your attentiveness, alertness, and ability to make decisions.

Deeper sleep patterns positively affect your memory, concentration, cognitive, and motor performance. It improves your brain health and increases your problem-solving abilities.

On the other hand, poor quality sleep adversely affects your brain functionality as if you are intoxicated with alcohol.

Keeps Depression in Check

When you are sleep-deprived, you are likely to get depressed. Thus, sleep loss is linked to poor mental health issues, including depression. Most depressed people experience sleep issues.

Studies have proven that individuals who have sleep-related problems have higher rates of depression and are at increased risks of harbouring suicidal thoughts. On the other hand, individuals who enjoy deeper slumber are happier and enjoy sound mental health.

When you wear a sleep mask or eye mask, it blocks out artificial light at night and aids in regulating your sleep-wake patterns. Thus, sleep masks work by managing our internal biological clock and stimulating the secretion of the melatonin-the sleep-inducing hormone.

The melatonin hormone signals the brain to get sleepy at night. On the contrary, exposure to artificial light reduces the level of melatonin and leads to sleeping disorders like insomnia. Any exposure to intrusive light disrupts an individual’s ability to fall asleep quickly.

The source of artificial light may include streetlights, ambient bedroom lights, and blue light from electronic devices like smartphones or laptops.

When you wear an eye mask, it serves as a shield for blocking out this artificial light. Thus, it helps in the realignment of the body’s internal body clock with the timings of day and night.