Beauty Rest is Real – Literally

You may have heard your mother talking about getting her “beauty rest”.  New research is showing that she knew what she was talking about.

Swedish scientists studied 23 subjects ages 18 to 31, photographing them before while well rested and then again after being up for 31 hours while getting only five hours of sleep.  The images were then shown to sixty-five observers who knew nothing about how much sleep each person had gotten.  The observers rated the photographs for attractiveness and whether the individuals looked healthy or unhealthy or tired or not tired. The observers judged the faces of sleep-deprived participants as less healthy and less attractive.

You can see the results for yourself in the image posted in a story on washingtonpost.com.