Photo: Vancouver Laser & Skincare Centre / Flickr

If you rely on a Botox shot or two (or three or four) to help keep wrinkles at bay, you may not only be preventing your face from expressing emotions – you could even be preventing yourself from feeling them properly. LiveScience reports that a Botox shot’s effect on your facial muscles could interfere with brain activity. Facial expressions are linked to emotions, scientists believe.

Frozen emotions

Researcher Joshua Davis of Barnard College in New York and his team published a research paper on Botox and emotions in the journal Emotion in June. They examined how a Botox shot, compared to the wrinkle filler Restylane, affected people’s emotions. He said that the Botox users ‘exhibited an overall significant decrease in the strength of emotional experience’ compared to the control group treated with Restylane.

Communication breakdown

‘With Botox, a person can respond otherwise normally to an emotional event, [such as] a sad movie scene, but will have less movement in the facial muscles that have been injected, and therefore less feedback to the brain about such facial expressivity,’ Joshua Davis said. When the brain doesn’t know what your face is doing – smiling, crying – your ability to experience emotions such as joy and sadness could be significantly decreased.

The solution

If you must opt for surgical wrinkle intervention, it looks like Restylane is your best bet. But nothing beats prevention, so from as young an age as possible eat a healthy diet filled with omega-3 fatty acids (found in oily fish) and fresh fruit and vegetables. Always use sunscreen, and invest in a good moisturiser.

And keep smiling. Smiling, even when you are down, can send messages to the brain that you feel good, and if the brain thinks you’re happy, you will be. ‘Fake it till you make it,’ Davis says.

Tags: Botox, moisturiser, skin care, sunscreen