Imagine the stereotypical Botox patient. Go ahead. Are you seeing someone from “Real Housewives of Orange County,” a woman whose face is immobile after countless invasive plastic surgeries and who is so obsessed with defying the aging process that she’ll mutilate herself and inject her body with dangerous toxins to avoid a furrowed brow?
That’s the stereotype all right. But it’s false. It’s a phantasm born of a dozen bad reality TV shows. Sure, there might be some women for whom Botox is one part of a shallow, self-absorbed trek into deep denial, but the huge majority of women who get the procedure are normal, healthy people who just want to look better and feel better. Yes, we said feel better. In The Beauty Prescription, we talked a little about research that showed that having Botox treatments actually made women feel more positive. Now there’s more evidence that the phenomenon is real .
Research results published in the March issue of the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology suggested that based on a controlled study, people who received injections of Botulinum Toxin A (Botox is the brand name) to paralyze the muscles in their brows and make them incapable of frowning actually showed fewer negative emotions and experienced lower levels of depression and anxiety. Twenty-five volunteers participated, and while 12 recieved Botox, the control group got facial peels and other therapies for “frown lines.” After two weeks, all the patients filled out surveys on their emotional states. The patients who got Botox scored much lower for depression, irritability and anxiety.
What we find very interesting is that the Botox patients said their improved mood didn’t stem from feeling more attractive after the treatments. We agree with the researchers who surmised that the effect probably came from a kind of “feedback loop” (our Beauty-Brain Loop in action) in which facial expressions that reinforce positive emotions stimulate more of the same in a person, while expressions such as frowning stimulate anger, fear, irritation and stress. Essentially, when you frown, you might be cueing yourself to feel like there’s something to frown about, which makes you frown more. As goes thy face, so goes thy mood.
This is a small sample size and there’s more work to be done, but we find this research incredibly promising for promoting the idea of holistic beauty. In a holistic system controlled by the Beauty-Brain Loop, how you react to your environment stimulates your inner beauty, which affects how you look physically. Your appearance sparks a reaction from the people around you, who are also part of your environment, and that reaction feeds back to you. Simply put, think beautiful and smile, and you become beautiful. The evidence is piling up that this is so, and it offers wonderful possibilities for women and men to take control of their own internal and external beauty simply by making new, conscious choices for how to view life, people, and the events of the day. Imagine if you could be more beautiful on your own, without injections, by choosing to smile instead of frown.
Either way, Botox or no, it’s exciting. We’ll keep you posted on more research of this kind as it comes along.
In the Beauty-Brain Loop, the interdependent system that connects all aspects of what makes us beautiful, Environment is the most sensitive. Our health, our skin, our inner self—these are all fairly stable, at least, we hope they are. But the environment, which consists of our physical surroundings, our relationships and the way we view others and the world around us, is dynamic and constantly changing in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. We shift our physical surroundings by something as simple as lighting a candle, while relationships can change course with a single sentence. So it is not surprising that during the holiday season, our environment is under assault from a powerful enemy: work.
We’re a work-centric culture, and we two are no different. As physicians, our work is a great part of who we are. It defines us in some very important ways, and other people in other professions, from law to journalism to education, are the same way. Such people are actually quite blessed to be involved in careers that are so engaging and important that they can shape who we are. But…what about when it becomes too much? What about when work follows us home? The home is a vital aspect of holistic beauty; it’s supposed to be the place where we are at peace, where we can enjoy love and music and the smell of food cooking, where we can shape our physical surroundings to appeal to our senses in any way we like. When you come home after leaving your work behind, don’t you breathe a sigh of relief? It’s your space, your sanctuary, where you can nurture the most beautiful aspects of yourself.
In the past, work stayed at work. But in recent years, it’s become culturally OK to be on call 24/7. Cell phones, e-mail, Blackberries and virtual private networks make any of us (unless we commit the societal sin of turning off our electronics) reachable at any time, anywhere. Home has become an extension of the office for many people, and when that happens it loses its peace and serenity. Its rejuvenating power diminishes. When your concern at home is not slipping into a comfy robe, grabbing a favorite book, curling up to read to your kids or just sitting with a cup of tea doing nothing, but dealing with work, you’re not recharging your batteries. You’re not in balance, and the Beauty-Brain Loop is all about balance. You’re not balanced when you are at work even when you’re at home.
So we are issuing a call to arms…actually, to hands. Turn off the devices. Leave work at work. Rebuild the boundary between work and home. If you’ve been feeling stressed out, impatient, sleepless and ragged this holiday season, it may be because your home is not the beautiful environment you need it to be. Fortunately, that has little to do with its decor. It has everything to do with how you feel when you walk across the threshold. In this season of giving, give yourself the gift of a beautiful Environment. Decide that it’s OK not to be at work all the time. Remind yourself that home, aside from being what Robert Frost called the place that “when you go there, they have to take you in,” should also be the place where you heal and revive body and spirit. Try it. You’ll feel—and be—more beautiful.
Let’s face it, the holiday season is unkind to beauty. In almost any part of the country the weather is, well, frightful, which makes skin dry and red and makes us more likely to come down with a cold or flu (interesting note: it’s actually been scientifically proven that cold viruses spread more easily in cold, dry weather). Holiday parties and big family dinners mean tempting calories that can undermine months’ worth of hard work at the gym, in the pool or at the yoga studio. And of course, the travel, relatives coming and going, fighting for the last Elmo toy and worrying about spending during a troubled economy can mean a month’s worth of stress that can cause skin breakouts, suppress the immune system and wreck sleep, leaving us with dark circles under our eyes and a generally non-cheery disposition.
Call it “Bah Humbug Beauty Syndrome.” It’s what can make us, at a time of the year when we’re supposed to be taking joy in family, friends, winter’s beauty and festivity, feel and look less than our best. We just don’t think that’s fair, so we’re here with some suggestions. Not so much for your waistline or your skin; those are easy to find from many sources. You know the usual advice: skip the potluck meals, eat light, drink in moderation, keep working out, moisturize, and so on. No, our advice relates more to the stress component of the holiday season, the part that sometimes keeps us from seeing the beauty around us because we’re so busy trying to keep up with what the holidays are supposed to be.
Well, as we point out in The Beauty Prescription, part of being beautiful is seeing and appreciating beauty in others and having the air of joy and peace that comes with that beauty. So some of the best beauty advice these two docs can provide is medicine that you make yourself with your mind, eyes and heart:
Stop during your running and look around. See the decorations, the people dressed for the holidays, the delight on childrens’ faces. Listen to the music and carols. Appreciate it for what it means: everyone coming together to celebrate life, regardless of their religious beliefs.
Quit trying to find the perfect gift for certain people and focus on something meaningful to the values of each person on your list.
Spend more time on the simple, healing aspects of the holidays: songs, tree decorating, deep conversations with family. Slow down.
Think back on the blessings of the last year and take time to really appreciate and find the meaning in each one. You might find you have more to be thankful for than you realized.
Do something kind for someone else, whether it’s serving food at a soup kitchen or donating canned goods to charity. It feels wonderful.
Yes, you should take care of your skin, eat right and all the rest. But true beauty comes from within, and if you live in a frigid climate nobody can see your perfect complexion under all those layers of outerwear anyway. But a beautiful disposition always shines through.
