Happy Sleep Awareness Week! 

This coming week is a celebration of what the power of a little shut-eye can do. Sleep Awareness Week takes place March 2-9 and is an annual public awareness campaign to promote the importance of catching those zzz's. The week begins with the announcement of the National Sleep Foundation's Sleep in America poll results and ends with the clock change to Daylight Saving Time, where Americans lose one hour of sleep. 

On our end, we decided to give you our version of what's important and remind you that beauty sleep is definitely a must!

Beauty sleep isn't just a myth. Your body needs the time to rest and your cells need the time to renew. As we age, the cell renewla process slows down and we have to help things along with the aid of our favorite anti-aging topical creams. Our resident skin care expert, Dr. Vish Banthia agrees.

"When we are children our skin turns over approximately every 14 days. As teens, our cells turn over approximately every 21 to 28 days. "But as we age, cell turnover slows down to 30 to 40 days, and after we reach 50 and older, cell turnover can slow to 1-1/2 to 3 months," he explained.

Hydrating skin before you head off to bed is a great way to keep skin moisturized and fend off dryness. It also helps prevent dehydration, which contributes to the visual signs aging.

"Look for a cream that contains hyaluronic acid (HA)," Dr. Banthia recommended. "Slather on this natural component of skin's connective tissues, to hydrate and firm up skin cells." Our skin uses sleeping hours to heal itself from the day's damage. So when you drift off, it gets the chance to improve, so use a good night cream and get great skin all with your eyes closed.  

Check out our sleepy skin care picks in the slideshow above and see if any are worth slathering on before you slumber.

Sweet dreams!