Botox Not Only Paralyzes Muscles, It Paralyzes Emotions

by Heidi Stevenson

22 April 2010

A study has shown that emotions are dulled when the muscles used to express them are prevented from functioning. As a result, botox not only paralyzes muscles, it also paralyzes emotions. Media reports that it harms relationships miss the real issue. Botox slows or prevents emotions from coming into existence. To fully experience the world, you must have the ability to physically express your response.

A study to be published in Psychological Science reveals that emotional language is interconnected neurologically with involuntary facial expressions. The authors demonstrated that comprehension of sentences with emotional content is slower in people with Botox injections. This is a continuation of research that, according to the authors,

...suggests that comprehension involves a mental simulation of sentence content that calls on the same neural systems used in literal action, perception, and emotion. Here we demonstrate a causal role of involuntary facial expression in the processing of emotional language.

The full range of emotion is lost when the face loses the ability to express feelings. People are opting for the dubious benefit of a societal norm for beauty that includes the lack of age and experience produced wrinkles. Apparently, they are cutting themselves off from experiencing the full range of emotions.

This is a deeply troubling result. Unfortunately, mainstream news has focused on relatively minor possibilities, suggesting that the lack of facial expression alienates people. They have extrapolated on the results by implying that people around the person using Botox will react poorly to dulled reactions. That may be true and is certainly troubling, but the actual implications are far more disconcerting.

The danger revealed is that the individuals themselves lose some of their ability to feel and respond to emotions. They become less human, more detached from others. It seems, though, a natural result for a society that sees a lack of visible aging as equivalent to beauty. If the elimination of emotion equates with beauty, the unspoken assumption must be that beauty is found in disconnection from life.

Isn't it long past time we start to question the application of medicine to reenforce questionable societal norms?

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