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Medically Reviewed by:

Robert Applebaum M.D.

How To Improve Mental Health With Surgery

It seems like everyone is talking about mental health these days — and with good reason! Mental health affects everyone. From anxiety to depression, there are ways to help fight against the stigma. Mental wellness can be achieved by stepping up your self-care.

While many people tend to neglect their mental health, there are ways you can start putting your mental wellbeing first. So begin by prioritizing yourself and your mental health with plastic surgery! 

What Is Mental Health and Why Does It Matter?

It can be difficult to define a concept as complex as mental health, but generally speaking, mental health refers to your emotional, psychological, and social well-being. Mental health affects countless aspects of life, including how you think, feel, and act. It also affects how you handle stress, how you relate to others, and how you make choices. 

Mental health is important at every stage of life. It can change throughout your life due to various factors, including biological, life experiences, and family history. For example, genes, brain chemistry, and family history contribute to mental health problems. Life experiences such as trauma or abuse can also contribute to mental health problems. 

Maintaining your mental health is important for living a long and fulfilled life. Mental health can actually begin to affect your physical life as those with poor mental health are more likely to experience physical health problems, including diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. Conversely, these physical health problems can negatively affect mental health. 

Additionally, poor mental health can negatively affect your life in other ways. Those with more severe mental health issues can experience social problems, including criminal behaviors and addiction to drugs or alcohol. 

How To Improve Mental Health?

If you need to improve your mental health, you should not be embarrassed. Most people struggle with mental health at some point in their lives. What’s important is how you deal with it! You can do so many things to improve your mental health, starting with your physical health.

To take care of yourself physically, you need to get enough sleep, eat a healthy diet, drink enough water, and get enough exercise. To take care of yourself mentally, you need to stay positive and be grateful for what you have instead of focusing on the negatives and what you don’t have. 

You also need to do activities that you care about and make you happy. For instance, if you love art, take time to creatively express yourself through painting, drawing, sculpting, etc. On the other hand, if you love sports, get active by joining a team or hitting the gym. 

Some other ways that can help boost your mental health and decrease stress levels include keeping a gratitude journal, practicing meditation or yoga, trying new hobbies, set goals, social interaction with new people, deep breathing, taking a warm bath, and exposure to sunlight. All of these activities can help boost your mood and serotonin. You’ll be on your way to having a more positive outlook on life in no time!

There is also practical help and resources like therapy and emotional support to help your mental health. In addition, depending on your mental illness, your mental health care provider may prescribe you medication. If you are feeling emotions such as sadness, shame, or are dealing with difficult situations— it may be a good time to look into therapy.

Can Mental Health Be Improved With Surgery?

Another way to improve your mental health is to improve how you feel about your physical appearance through surgery. While this may seem like a drastic and perhaps unnecessary step, how you feel about yourself on the outside can affect how you feel on the inside. 

It’s easy to internalize others’ negative comments and opinions about your appearance. Even in the absence of negative comments, you can still have insecurities about perceived flaws. So instead of letting these issues negatively impact your mental health, you can take steps to address these perceived insecurities using surgery to improve your mental health. 

Plastic Surgery

Plastic surgery procedures can be used to address your insecurities to boost your self-esteem, and as a result, your mental health. If you have an insecurity, the odds are that there’s a plastic surgery procedure to address it. 

For example, if you’re insecure about the bump in your nose from when you broke it as a kid, you can get a rhinoplasty (nose job) to smooth it out and no longer feel like your nose is ugly or unusual. 

If you’re insecure about the size of your breasts, there are also surgical solutions available. If you feel that your breasts are too large and you have trouble fitting into clothes or exercising, you may want to consider a breast reduction so that you feel more comfortable in your skin. 

On the other hand, if you feel that your breasts are too small, you may want to consider breast augmentation to feel more confident and sexy. 

Finally, suppose you’re insecure about many different parts of your body after pregnancy and childbirth. In that case, you may want to consider a “mommy makeover” that includes breast augmentation, breast lift, and tummy tuck. 

These surgeries address breast and stomach insecurities that mothers commonly experience after pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding. 

Non-Surgical Techniques

If plastic surgery isn’t your thing, there are still non-surgical cosmetic procedures that may improve your mental health. For instance, if you’re insecure about wrinkles and fine lines that seem to be popping up out of nowhere as you get older, Botox is a minimally invasive solution you may want to consider. There’s no cutting involved with Botox injections, and there’s no recovery time either! Fillers can mimick face lifting and is completely non invasive.  

Or, if you’re insecure about scars or areas of hyperpigmentation on your skin due to pregnancy or otherwise, you may want to consider laser skin resurfacing. This procedure also doesn’t involve any cutting and instead uses lasers to stimulate your skin’s healing mechanisms to heal these areas of concern. This procedure can also be used to address wrinkles! 

Finally, if you’re embarrassed by body hair in places where it just doesn’t belong, you may want to consider laser hair removal. This procedure heats and damages the hair follicles with lasers, disrupting hair growth in areas including your armpits and upper lip. 

Wrap Up on Mental Health

For the best self-esteem boost, you need the best surgeon — so look no further than Dr. Applebaum in sunny Beverly Hills, California. With 30 years of experience, he can help you develop a surgical plan to eliminate your insecurities to help you look and feel you’re very best. Schedule a consultation today to get started on your mental health journey.

 

Medically reviewed by Dr. Robert Applebaum

Dr. Robert Applebaum is a world renowned and highly respected Plastic Surgeon who is Board Certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery. In his nearly 30 years as a practicing physician, Dr. Applebaum has become known as an innovator in the field of laser technology techniques for plastic surgery procedures. He has published numerous articles and scientific papers about the use of laser technology and educates physicians worldwide on the applications of laser technology for plastic surgery. Dr. Applebaum primarily practices out of his private outpatient surgery center, Four Thirty Six Aesthetic Surgery Center, which is located in Beverly Hills.

 

Sources:

About Mental Health | CDC.gov

What Is Mental Health? | MentalHealth.gov

Does Cosmetic Surgery Improve Psychosocial Wellbeing? | NCBI

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