People who sleep on their side or stomach exert compression, shear and stress force factors on their faces that result in ‘mechanical distortion’ and, ultimately, wrinkles, according to a new study by plastic surgeon and lead author Dr Goesel Anson, clinical instructor of surgery at the School of Medicine, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, published online on June 21 in the Aesthetic Surgery Journal.
These sleep wrinkles tend to be perpendicular to expression lines and they don’t respond significantly to animation, according to Dr Anson.
Common sleep wrinkles include the lateral oblique forehead crease, radial orbital crease, lateral (vertical) malar crease, medial cheek crease, nasal/lip crease, corner lip crease, oblique marionette crease, preauricular crease and inferior vertical cheek crease, according to the study.
While wrinkles from sleep tend to increase with age, they are also influenced by the amount of time spent in various positions. Interestingly, the number of position shifts per night decreases as we age — from 27 to 16 a night, with an average of 20 nightly position shifts, according to the research. As a result, the time spent in each position increases with age. According to the study, the lateral sleep position is the most common in studies, averaging 65%, while an average 30% of sleep is spent supine and 5% prone.
Sleep Wrinkle Solutions
Neuromodulators don’t work on wrinkles that are due to sleep, Dr Anson says. Fillers might help temporarily, but if patients’ wrinkles are truly from compression during sleep and the mechanical distortion continues after filler treatment, the results are unlikely to last long at all, according to Dr Anson.
The logical solution is to limit the cause: the mechanical compression that comes from sleeping on a pillow. “There are several specialty pillows available these days, which help to minimise distortion during sleep,” she says.
Dr Anson has developed and patented such a product, called the JuveRest pillow. “We have a small amount of unpublished data comparing a standard pillow to the JuveRest pillow. We see a clear improvement in distortion and wrinkles immediately.”
