Morning
photography Mila Ritz
model Ingeborg Sofie Gumdal
Truth be told, I am not a morning person. My typical morning beauty routine involves the frequent slamming of the snooze button until I have successfully procrastinated long enough that I barely have time to brush my teeth, wash my face (sometimes, ugh), get dressed, and throw on a coat of mascara for good measure. Little did I know, this frantic morning rush might be a direct correlation to my self-esteem. A recent survey of nearly 2,000 people ages 13 to 64 (commissioned by Yahoo Health and Ipsos) found that many of us have a negative relationship with our morning grooming ritual.
The study found that the longer someone spends getting ready in the morning, the more likely they are to feel negative about their appearance. Similarly, the less time someone spends grooming in the morning, the more positively they view their appearance. The study showed that the average woman spends about 22.5 minutes getting ready each morning. Maybe it's just me, but I found that rather impressive. Nice job, ladies; I admire the hustle. Based on this figure, the study concluded that the average woman has a body-neutral or body-negative image of herself, compared with body-positive women who clocked in their morning routine at 18.7 minutes. Even more interesting was that body-ambivalent women (those who have a love-hate relationship with their bodies) spent the most time getting ready in the morning (26.1 minutes), a full four minutes above the average.
The parallel among men was even stronger. While a body-positive or body-neutral male spent about 15 minutes getting ready in the morning, a body-negative man spent close to 23.3 minutes (body-ambivalent men clocked in at 20.8 minutes). That's close to a 10-minute swing (or in my eyes, two extra snooze sessions) between those who view their appearance positively and negatively.
An interesting study, sure, but let's remember to take this all with a grain of salt. Just because you like to indulge yourself with a 30-minute or hour-long morning ritual doesn't mean you have skewed body image. Five minutes or 55 minutes, follow the morning routine that makes you feel your best, and in the end, that's all that matters.
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