A MENTAL HEALTH GLOW-UP

Forget fine lines. Could Botox give you an unexpected mental health tweakment?

- IAN TAYLOR

If you look good, you feel good. That’s the slightly spurious basis on which the UK spends an estimated £2.75bn ($3.68bn) annually on cosmetic procedures like Botox and dermal fillers. Collectively, we have around 900,000 aesthetic treatments every year, each one described as “noninvasive” but nevertheless designed to rearrange our faces and disguise the ravages of time.

What’s surprising is that some of the reported benefits aren’t about how young a person looks or how much better they feel in their newly-taut skin. They’re about improvements in mental health.

Users speak about how Botox injections have lowered their symptoms of depression or anxiety. Others make jokes about not needing another reason to go for their touch-ups.

The commentary picks up on a steady drip of eyebrow-raising research from the last 15 years, which suggests that Botox can indeed help people with depression. Researchers have shown that Botox injections can significantly lower depressive symptoms within 12 weeks. According to a 2025 review of the evidence, some studies noted an effect that’s comparable to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) medication and faster acting, too.