- Fri Sep 30, 2011 10:21 pm
#18132
A new study shows that 9 out of ten people who had depression and were treated with Botox had their depression completely vanish.
These people were NOT looking for Botox to treat their wrinkles--they were part of a controlled study, so the effect wasn't just "yay, I'm not depressed anymore because I think I look better!" This was an actual, documented, scientific study.
This is because of a weird connection between your brain and your facial muscles. See: if you're unhappy, you frown, and if you're happy, you smile, right? But it also works the other way: if you purposefully frown, signals are sent to your brain, which seems to conclude that if you're frowning, then there must be a reason to be unhappy, and then your brain creates more chemicals to make you even more unhappy.
So when facial muscles are frozen and people can no longer frown, they end up happier, because their brains are no longer being "told" to produce sad chemicals by their frowning facial muscles.
No word on whether very happy people become sadder since they can no longer smile as widely or with their whole face as before.
This is interesting, but it also means that Botox could be chemically addictive, since if it cures depression, you could become dependent on it and suffer from withdrawal once it wears off.
These people were NOT looking for Botox to treat their wrinkles--they were part of a controlled study, so the effect wasn't just "yay, I'm not depressed anymore because I think I look better!" This was an actual, documented, scientific study.
This is because of a weird connection between your brain and your facial muscles. See: if you're unhappy, you frown, and if you're happy, you smile, right? But it also works the other way: if you purposefully frown, signals are sent to your brain, which seems to conclude that if you're frowning, then there must be a reason to be unhappy, and then your brain creates more chemicals to make you even more unhappy.
So when facial muscles are frozen and people can no longer frown, they end up happier, because their brains are no longer being "told" to produce sad chemicals by their frowning facial muscles.
No word on whether very happy people become sadder since they can no longer smile as widely or with their whole face as before.
This is interesting, but it also means that Botox could be chemically addictive, since if it cures depression, you could become dependent on it and suffer from withdrawal once it wears off.
