Sleep Deprivation Affects Face Appearance, Study Shows

This is for everyone who's ever been asked "Are you feeling OK?" after a bad night's sleep.

A small new study in the journal Sleep shows that sleep-deprived faces look more, shall we say, weary -- in the form of redder and more swollen eyes, dark under-eye circles, more wrinkles and droopier eyelids -- than well-rested faces.

"Since faces contain a lot of information on which humans base their interactions with each other, how fatigued a person appears may affect how others behave toward them," study researcher Tina Sundelin, M.Sc., a doctoral student in the department of psychology at Stockholm University in Sweden, said in a statement. "This is relevant not only for private social interactions, but also official ones such as with health care professionals and in public safety."

The study is based on 10 people who had photographs taken of them at 2:30 p.m. after eight hours of sleep and after going 31 hours with no sleep. Then, 40 study participants looked at 20 photographs and rated them based on fatigue, sadness and facial cues.

Indeed, the photos of the subjects when they were sleep-deprived depicted more dark under-eye circles, paler skin, and droopy corners of the mouth. The study participants also said that the people who were sleep-deprived looked sadder because they looked tired.

Recently, a study commissioned by Este Lauder showed that sleep deprivation could make your skin age faster , as well as lower its ability to recover from sun exposure, HuffPost 50 reported.