Studies prove the phenomenom of "beauty" rest

Every year Penn State University organizes a 48-hour dance marathon in order to raise money for children with cancer. (It's an amazing cause, and 69 million dollars has been raised so far!) 

Despite the torturous practice of having to stay awake-- and largely on your feet-- for the entire 48 hours, students vigorously compete against one another for the chance to "dance" in the fight against cancer. 

After witnessing friends do this to themselves four years in a row, I can personally attest to the findings recently proven in a recent Swedish study: (to put it nicely) sleep deprivation negatively effects your appearance.

For the study, a dozen men and a dozen women slept for no more than five hours on the first night, which was spent at home, followed by a second night in a sleep laboratory, when they were not allowed to sleep at all. Photos were taken in the afternoon, after 31 hours of continuous wakefulness, and compared with photos taken after a full night's sleep of eight hours.

The photos were then judged by 65 observers, who rated the pictures for attractiveness and healthiness.

Although the physical differences between the sets were marginal, it was something that the untrained observers almost automatically picked up on, and the well-rested versions were significantly perceived as being more attractive and healthy. 

"There are small signals, but if you spend a few seconds looking at a face, you instinctively read them," said study leader John Axelsson, of the department of clinical neuroscience at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. "These are judgments you make about people without thinking."

But... anyone who has had a bad night's sleep could probably have accurately predicted the outcome of this study. Dark circles and bags under the eyes are not usually considered attractive... isn't it obvious that someone who appears tired would be perceived as less attractive than someone well-rested? 

In these days, the answer is not necessarily so black and white. "Attractiveness" is nature's way of allowing humans to pick the healthiest, most compatible set of genes to mate and reproduce with. As society advances, people who look tired may work more and earn more money, which is the updated version of being able to provide well for his family-- and in a few instances, some of the sleep-deprived pictures actually were chosen as the more attractive versions.

The overall findings of this study (published in the British Medical Journal's Christmas issue) has received a warm welcome from an industrialized world that is largely sleep-deprived. Axelsson speculates that his research might put the beauty industry at risk, as sleeping might become competition against beauty products if the end result is to look better.

However, with a cultural focus on appearance at all time high, and new aesthetic treatments being developed every day, I think the cosmetic companies can also continue to sleep easy...

(And as far as Penn State's dance marathon is concerned-- the cause itself is beautiful enough to make up for the bedraggled, exhausted appearance of the participants upon its immediate completion.)