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. 2010 Dec 14:341:c6614.
doi: 10.1136/bmj.c6614.

Beauty sleep: experimental study on the perceived health and attractiveness of sleep deprived people

John Axelsson  1 , Tina Sundelin, Michael Ingre, Eus J W Van Someren, Andreas Olsson, Mats Lekander
Affiliations

Beauty sleep: experimental study on the perceived health and attractiveness of sleep deprived people

John Axelsson et al. BMJ. .

Abstract

Objective: To investigate whether sleep deprived people are perceived as less healthy, less attractive, and more tired than after a normal night's sleep.

Design: Experimental study.

Setting: Sleep laboratory in Stockholm, Sweden.

Participants: 23 healthy, sleep deprived adults (age 18-31) who were photographed and 65 untrained observers (age 18-61) who rated the photographs.

Intervention: Participants were photographed after a normal night's sleep (eight hours) and after sleep deprivation (31 hours of wakefulness after a night of reduced sleep). The photographs were presented in a randomised order and rated by untrained observers.

Main outcome measure: Difference in observer ratings of perceived health, attractiveness, and tiredness between sleep deprived and well rested participants using a visual analogue scale (100 mm).

Results: Sleep deprived people were rated as less healthy (visual analogue scale scores, mean 63 (SE 2) v 68 (SE 2), P<0.001), more tired (53 (SE 3) v 44 (SE 3), P<0.001), and less attractive (38 (SE 2) v 40 (SE 2), P<0.001) than after a normal night's sleep. The decrease in rated health was associated with ratings of increased tiredness and decreased attractiveness.

Conclusion: Our findings show that sleep deprived people appear less healthy, less attractive, and more tired compared with when they are well rested. This suggests that humans are sensitive to sleep related facial cues, with potential implications for social and clinical judgments and behaviour. Studies are warranted for understanding how these effects may affect clinical decision making and can add knowledge with direct implications in a medical context.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: All authors have completed the Unified Competing Interest form at www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf (available on request from the corresponding author) and declare: no support from any company for the submitted work; no financial relationships with any companies that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous 3 years; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work.

Figures

None
Fig 1 Relations between health, tiredness, and attractiveness of 46 photographs (two each of 23 participants) rated by 65 observers on 100 mm visual analogue scales, with variation between observers removed using empirical Bayes’ estimates
None
Fig 2 Participant after a normal night’s sleep (left) and after sleep deprivation (right). Faces were presented in a counterbalanced order
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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