Can our moods be affected by Botox?

Did the chicken or egg come first?

Does are mood reflect our facial expressions or does our facial expressions reflect our mood? We assumed that our emotions directed our facial expressions, but studies have suggested it is in fact our facial expressions that determine our emotions.

You cannot feel depressed if you are smiling and being expressive with your face. To feel depressed you need to have little expression on your face, look sad, look down and curl up your body. Whenever my children are upset or start crying, first thing I do is to get them to open their body up, look towards to the sky and crack a joke to get them to smile, and it works every time. Researches also understood the above strategy and started asking themselves on whether if we prevented a negative facial expression, such as frowning, could we change that persons mood and help depression.

William James an American philosopher postulated in 1890 that the common sense of viewing emotions is wrong. He went on to say without our bodies ability to express an emotion, it ceases to exist. For example we can not experience fear without faster heart beats, more shallow breathing, trembling lips, weak at the knees, goosebumps, etc.

Our facial expressions have evolved over millions of years. Charles Darwin in 1872 wrote, ‘A man may be absorbed in the deepest thought, and his brow will remain smooth until he encounters some obstacle in his train of reasoning, or is interrupted by some disturbance, and then a frown passes like a shadow over his brow’.

We can all tell if someone is angry by the negative facial expression such as frowning. We know the opposite to the negative frown is the positive smile.

‘A smile cures the wounding of a frown’ – Shakespare

There are different types of smiles and a true genuine smile has been classified as the Duchenne smile. In this smile, Duchenne a French anatomist in 1860, observed the ‘smile of joy’ where the orbicularis oculi is activated and contracts to produce the crows feet. This is in stark contrast to the ‘Mona Lisa smile’ where the eyes are not involved at all when smiling. This can be used to our advantage, very few people can fake a genuine eye smile. If they don’t create lines around their eyes when they smile its either because it not a genuine smile or that’ve had Botox. Smiling is good for us. Smiling creates positive emotions and thus leads to a reduction in stress related hormones.

A third type of smiles is known as the Hawthorne’s ‘sad’ smile. This is where you are experiencing a sad/depressing event, lets say a funeral and you see a relative who is struggling to cope with the circumstances, you may just give them a small smile to indicate we are in this together and we will be ok.

Lets go back and look at the negative facial expression of frowning (which botox can reduce) . There are different types of frowns (sad versus angry) depending on which muscles are recruited, and each one has a different meaning. If the inner part of your eyebrows point upwards whilst frowning, you will look sad. If however the eyebrows are drawn together and down whilst frowning, you will look angry.

By stopping us to frown via botox injections, we can possibly uplift our spirits.

To book an appointment please visit botox hertfordshire.