If you regularly wake up in the morning with eyes that feel and/or look slightly swollen, you could be suffering from puffy morning eyes. This common occurrence can be the result of several contributing factors, including how you sleep---and how long you sleep. Because determining why your eyes are puffy also can indicate how you treat your eyes, consider the following contributing factors to puffy morning eyes.
Your Sleeping Position
Sleeping without your head elevated can cause fluid to build up underneath your eyes, according to the Mayo Clinic. Instead, you should make an effort to prop your head up by placing a pillow or several pillows underneath your head. This allows the forces of gravity to naturally pull fluid away from underneath your eyes.
How Long You Sleep
If you have suffered a sleepless night or you have not been getting at least seven hours of sleep per night, you likely are experiencing puffy eyes that may be accompanied by dark circles. Getting enough sleep not only helps you function better during the day, it also affects the level of inflammation in your body. When you have not slept enough, the blood vessels under the eyes can become dilated, which causes the eyes to appear more puffy and the blood vessels are brought closer to the surface, which means the area under the eyes appear purple, blue or even blackish without enough sleep.
What You Ate/Drank the Night Before
If you enjoyed a high-sodium meal or a excessive amount of alcohol the night before, it's likely you could wake up with puffy eyes. First, eating too many salty foods can cause your body to retain water, which leads to puffy eyes, according to Science Line. Avoiding foods known to be high in sodium, such as fast foods, may help to reduce undereye puffiness. When you wake up with puffy eyes related to high sodium levels, increasing your water intake can help to flush built-up fluid out from the body.
What you drink also can affect puffy morning eyes. For example, if you drank several alcoholic beverages the previous night, the alcohol acted as a dehydrating factor and made the skin under the eye feel thinner. This means the presence of any fluid can lead to the eyes looking puffier than they normally would were the skin not dehydrated. To combat this, begin drinking large amounts of fluids in order to help the skin retain its moisturized appearance.
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