Why do you feel more tired when sunburnt?
In: Biology
Sunburns kill skin cells, causing an acute increase in proteins called interferons (among others). These are proteins that have many roles including anti viral effects. A known effect of interferons that are given therapeutically is extreme fatigue (used to be given in cases of hepatitis infection). Source – I am a dermatologist/immunologist.
Likely due to the dehydration and whatever you were doing that caused you to be sunburned. Plus, that’s a large surface area burn, and especially if it’s peeling off, that’s a lot of water loss from the burned areas of skin.
Similarly, can someone explain the science behind why I’m so tired after a tattoo?
Will spf help prevent this if I’m also hydrated?
If you really want to be mind blown, getting large tattoos feels much the same, both in skin pain at the tattoo site, and the drained tiredness and malaise I associate with sunburn.
In fact, some even call the reaction “tattoo flu”. Similar thing though, I imagine. Damage to the body, trauma, mild shock, inflammation responses, etc.
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Sunburn is an injury to your skin. When your body repairs itself it diverts resources to that task, causing you to feel tired.
You are not just “burned”, the largest organ of your body (the skin) is having widespread inflammatory response to recover from the burn damage.
Inflammatory response is when the immune system is hard at work, and it’s pretty much the same mechanism that makes you feel tired when you are unwell from other causes.
Another factor apart from what everyone has said about skin damage is that you’re also likely to become dehydrated
Because your body is using all its energy/calories trying to repair the damage you allowed the sun to do
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