Can Botox Really Improve Your Mood? A Surprising Connection

If you're someone who regularly gets neurotoxin treatments like Botox, you might already know how it can smooth fine lines and wrinkles. But did you know it might also have an impact on your mood?

Botox and the Brain: How Are They Connected?

Dr. Schneider, a board-certified dermatologist, recently shared an interesting perspective on the link between Botox and mood improvement. It turns out that when you treat the glabella (the area between your eyebrows where "11" lines form), you’re actually targeting the depressor muscles. These are the muscles you use when you’re frowning, concentrating, or feeling frustrated.

When these muscles are activated, they send signals to your brain, essentially telling you that you’re stressed or upset—a feedback loop that can make you feel worse. By using neurotoxin to relax these muscles, you break the loop. As a result, some people report feeling better after treatment because their brain isn’t constantly getting the signal that they're upset.

The Crow’s Feet Conundrum

Here’s where it gets interesting. Many people also choose to treat their crow’s feet—the lines that appear around your eyes when you smile. However, research suggests that if you treat both the glabella and the crow’s feet, the mood-boosting effect might disappear. That’s because crow’s feet are linked to smiling and positive expressions. When you smooth them out, you may lose some of that natural feedback that signals happiness to your brain.

Should You Skip the Crow’s Feet?

If you’re getting Botox and want to see if it might help improve your mood, consider talking to your injector about only treating the glabella and leaving the crow’s feet alone. You might find that this targeted approach not only helps smooth your frown lines but also gives your mood a boost.

If you’ve tried this, Dr. Schneider would love to hear about your experience. Let her know how it worked for you!

Want the transript for this video instead?  Are you someone who's been getting neurotoxin? I'm Dr. Schneider. I'm a board certified dermatologist. Let's talk about Botox and depression. So there's been some data that shows that if you treat in here, which is the glabella. Which is the depressors, it's what we do when we're thinking hard, we're frustrated, we're angry.

It's a feedback loop between our muscles and our brain that tells us like, Ooh, you are doing this. So we're frustrated and it actually makes us feel. Bad if this is knocked out, meaning you're using neurotoxin, you're not able to fire these muscles as much. It interrupts that conversation with the brain and people's moods were better.

Okay? We already kind of know that I've talked about that before. The thing that is so interesting about this is these are our crow's feet. If you are treating your crow's feet, that's what we do When we smile, it's we smile. We get our crow's feet. If you're treating your crow's feet. That association goes away, meaning you treated your crow's feet and you treated here.

You don't actually feel better even though you knocked out the depressor. If you are getting neurotoxin and you don't mind your crow's feet, it might be time to talk to your injector about maybe not doing that and seeing if your mood feels better having just taken out your depressors. If you've tried this, I want you to, to let me know how it went.

Tell me in the comments.