Jennifer Lopez: ‘I think of sleep like a little time machine… you come out younger’

Those of you who read me regularly know I have an uneasy relationship with sleep. Jennifer Lopez knows what I’m going through. She once turned her back on sleep to work more. But it took its toll on both her mental health and appearance. Not only did it lead to paralyzing anxiety attacks, J.Lo finds that the more sleep she gets, the more she sees it in her face. She calls sleep her “little time machine” and claims to wake up looking younger when she gets 7-9 hours of sleep per night.

Jennifer Lopez is getting real about an underrated beauty secret: sleep.

In an excerpt from the actress and singer’s newsletter, On the JLo, she opened up about how a panic attack led her to realize the importance of getting her enough shut-eye — as well as leading her to prioritize mindfulness and a work-life balance.

“We don’t value sleep,” she wrote. “We value grinding and working hard — and admittedly, nobody gets caught up in that rat race more than me. I’ve found however, that sleep to me is the most underrated beauty secret out there.”

“There was a time in my life where I used to sleep 3 to 5 hours a night,” she explained. “I’d be on set all day and in the studio all night and doing junkets and filming videos on the weekends. I was in my late 20s and I thought I was invincible.”
That all changed when she went from “feeling totally normal” in her trailer to feeling unable to move.

“I was completely frozen,” she said. “I had made my work such an all-consuming priority and let my own self-care needs go completely (even as simple as sleeping or taking ten minutes to just relax). I found myself feeling physically paralyzed, I couldn’t see clearly and then the physical symptoms I was having started to scare me and the fear compounded itself.”

Lopez, 52, said she now knows it was “a classic panic attack brought on by exhaustion,” but admitted that at the time she didn’t have words to describe it.

“My security guard on set came in and picked me up and drove me to the doctor,” she wrote. “By the time I got there, I could at least speak again and I was so terrified I thought I was losing my mind. I asked the doctor if I was going crazy. He said, ‘No, you’re not crazy. You need sleep … get 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night, don’t drink caffeine, and make sure you get your workouts in if you’re going to do this much work.’ I realized how serious the consequences could be of ignoring what my body and mind needed to be healthy — and that’s where my journey to wellness began.”

“As I slept more and took care of myself, I realized it was about pro-living versus anti-aging,” Lopez said.

“I think of sleep like a little time machine,” she continued. “You lay down and you go into a space where you preserve yourself and then you come out a new, younger person than you were before. Sometimes I wake up and say, ‘Wow! I just lost 10 years off my face!’ That’s what a good night’s sleep can do for you, and it accumulates over time.”

[From Yahoo]

It’s not that I don’t believe what J.Lo is saying, it’s just that I don’t need something else stressing me out when I’m trying to go to sleep. I know I look better after a good night’s sleep. The bags under my eyes get so dark, I constantly walk around looking post-op from a nose job. Fortunately, I live in LA so I blend in. I remember Julia Roberts once said to always wear mascara because it makes, “you look like you’ve had a good nap,” which is another way of saying that sleep is a great beauty tip. People like CB, who naps regularly, and J.Lo who gets her full night’s sleep, always look refreshed. And just like days and weeks of not sleeping show on a face, as J.Lo said above, sleep accumulates. Good sleep patterns benefit the whole you.

I love J.Lo’s comment about looking at it as pro-living vs. anti-aging, too. Because it does affect more than just your skin. I don’t have anxiety but the closest I get is at night. I have stress dreams that wake me up and prevent me from falling back asleep. Maybe that is a form of anxiety that I haven’t explored yet. I’m on a three-day stretch of insomnia from stress dreams right now. And it’s physically obvious, like J.Lo mentioned. Only, I’m not sure how to get those 7-9 hours she’s talking about. I guess I could cutout all caffeine, but I don’t really drink that much, and I don’t drink any after noon. I’ve been working out every day and my diet is the best it’s been in a over a year. So I guess I just need J.Lo’s millions and Ben Affleck to give me a green diamond to get a good night’s sleep?

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