Botox injection as happy protection!

Imagine putting needles in your face could make you feel better. A study done by Micheal B. Lewis investigated in how Botox might influence your mood. More specifically about Botulinum toxin (BTX), which reduce the mobility of muscles. This type of injection is mostly used for frown lines and crow’s feet. Based of  a theory called the facial feedback hypothesis (which explains that by making facial expressions, the internal feeling of that expression is strengthened), the experimenters hypothesise that by injecting BTX, the feeling of happiness would be less. They did a study with people who had had BTX in either their frown lines or crow’s feet. The crow’s feet are also known as the laughter lines and since real smile comes from the eyes and the mouth, these lines are essential for smiling!! The frown lines on the other hand are the opposite, they look negative. So when you would reduce these, you would look happier. Now that is exactly what they wanted to find out. They invited women before a BTX treatment to fill in a questionnaire about their mood. Afterwards they filled in the same questionnaire.

The results showed that the women who had BTX treatment for their frownlines had a decreased depressive mood, which implies they are happier! For the crows’ feet the results were not significant, although there was a little increase in depressive mood.

So if you look happier, you probably are happier!! 

Go smile!!!!

Reference:

Lewis, M. B. (2018). The interactions between botulinum-toxin-based facial treatments and embodied emotions. Scientific Reports, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-33119-1