How Makeup Can Affect People Dealing With Anxiety and Depression

The impact of beauty on your brain.

Emma was 13 years old when she realized she had issues with depression and anxiety. “I spent a long time just trying to become diagnosed, so that I could receive assistance, and considering my age, I faced a lot of hesitancy from medical professionals before I was able to receive help,” she says. Now, at age 18, Emma isn’t shy about sharing her own experience with others. She has a long-standing relationship with a therapist, and she’s discovered some coping mechanisms that actually work for her. One of the most significant — and perhaps surprising — happens to be makeup.

Show the world a teen girl with an unabashed love for cosmetics, and you may hear phrases like “vain” or “self-absorbed” in response. But for Emma, and others like her, the world of makeup and skincare brings much-needed peace, control, and empowerment (and on the tougher days, simply a reason to get out of bed in the mornings). “When I'm struggling with how I look or feel, I can do a full face of makeup, or I can do something crazy, something fun,” says Emma. “It gives me time to focus on something besides what my anxiety is centering on, and it gives me reassurance every time I look in the mirror: ‘Hey, I did that. That's pretty stinkin' cool.’”

As it turns out, beauty routines can bestow some pretty powerful cognitive benefits on the brain — especially if you commonly catch yourself stuck in negative thought patterns, like overanalyzing situations, blaming yourself for things beyond your control, or generally feeling pessimistic. These thoughts, which psychotherapist Mike Dow, PsyD, author of Healing the Broken Brain, refers to as “pitfall patterns,” are linked to neurological processes in the brain that have been associated with depression and anxiety, and certain actions — even those as seemingly simple as a skincare or makeup routine — can help to uproot them. “So many processes in the brain are more circular than linear — they look like merry-go-rounds, not arrows,” he explains. “To change them, we have to interrupt the loop somehow.”

Dr. Dow adds that, for this reason, most cognitive behavioral therapy patients are taught to do something either productive or pleasurable when they notice themselves getting stuck in feedback loops. For many, skincare and makeup just happen to handily tick both of those boxes.

Dil, a 20-year-old living in Melbourne, has grappled with anxious thoughts from early adolescence, citing the high expectations placed on her by peers, family, employers, and herself. Those patterns metastasized after a particularly stressful job in fashion ended abruptly for her, leaving her unemployed and second-guessing her own self-worth. “I basically thought I wasn't capable of doing something I'm supposed to be able to do. I feel like I don't have a lot of freedom or control over how or who I want to be.” This, she says, is where makeup comes into play. “When I'm doing my makeup, the only person who expects something from it is me, and the only person I can let down is me,” she explains. “I am in complete control of whatever I am doing, contrary to life, where sh*t gets thrown out of nowhere, and I can't do anything about it.”

It goes without saying that for someone struggling with depression or anxiety, seeking professional treatment is the first and most vital step, and no one would advocate swapping therapy and meds for a Sephora VIB card. But for young women like Emma and Dil, and others mired in those nagging negative feedback loops, beauty has the potential to be so much more than just a hobby or a part of daily appearance management — it’s a ritualized form of self-care, a much-needed avenue of routine and control, a means of creating the identity they wish to project, and a space for mindfulness and reflection. After all, carving out an hour in the morning to carefully apply one’s makeup isn’t unlike reserving space on your calendar for weekly yoga or daily journaling — and setting aside that kind of time and energy for daily, routine self-care can be a crucial aspect of wellness, especially when we’re dealing with feelings like sadness, fear, or uncertainty. (Which, these days, is unfortunately probably quite commonplace for a lot of us.)

Katherine Glick is a licensed professional counselor and licensed clinical alcohol and drug counselor who works with Talkspace, an online and mobile platform that connects clients to licensed therapists. She points to the habitual nature of beauty routines as a major benefit for those who have a hard time implementing and prioritizing self-care in their daily lives. “We are creatures of habit, and the more we can get ingrained in these positive wellness habits, the better we feel, especially if we’re dealing with anxiety,” Glick says. Dow echoes this, citing a study that found a correlation between very specific multistep, repetitive rituals and a perceived boost in effectiveness. “A skin-care regimen where you do this first, that third, and the other thing last will help calm you because you will believe it's effective,” he says.

Makeup and skin-care application can also invoke a powerfully positive neurochemical response simply through touch. “When you're engaging in hygiene activities, it's almost like a self-soothing ritual,” Glick says, adding that the sensation of touch stimulates the brain’s release of neuropeptides like oxytocin (also known as “the cuddle hormone”), which helps the body relax. “It makes sense that people with anxiety would gravitate towards something like this.”

As anyone who’s dealt with anxiety understands, the sense of feeling out of control can become overwhelming. Some, like Dil and Emma, see skincare and makeup as small but powerful ways to stake out a bit of control in their lives. Having a routine, knowing how to use certain products, understanding the science behind serums and BHAs — it can all add up to a sensation of feeling like you have a grip on something, even when everything else (relationships, family, school, work, democracy) feels totally out of reach. “In a world where most things are out of our control, what we can control is us,” says Glick. “We can put ourselves in the driver’s seat towards a better state of being.”

Even just the act of paying close attention to something for a prolonged period of time can be soothing. “Attention to detail can actually calm you,” Dr. Dow explains. “Research has shown that adult coloring books relieve anxiety, and this is especially true when adults color complex, intricate geometric patterns, like mandalas.” Or, for our purposes, studiously blending out an intricate cut-crease works in a similar manner. It might seem like a stretch from, say, transcendental meditation, but the quiet, studious, and deliberate act of a beauty routine can still feel zen. Dil says she told her therapist that applying makeup is one of the times when her mind is really at peace. “She was the one who likened my experience to meditation,” she says.

On top of the mindfulness, the control, and the regularly programmed self-care, there is perhaps a more obvious benefit to beauty: For a lot of people, playing with makeup and skin products is just fun. It’s a way to call the shots on the identity you project to the outside world, change it on a whim, and experiment with who you want to be. “Whether we're talking skincare or makeup or a really bright lipstick, some of these young women have, by actively owning that side of it, seen improvements just in the way that they're able to project themselves into the world,” says Glick. No one can argue with the confidence boost that is a bold lip or better skin.

If you’re suffering from depression or anxiety, no one would suggest that beauty is an acceptable replacement for professional help or medical treatment. But if dedicating a little time to yourself and your body each day can help make you feel a little happier, a little more at peace, and a little less afraid, then that can only be a good thing — especially when so much of the world right now can feel scary and beyond our control. Emma puts it best: “It has been a source of pride, of hope, and a consistent reminder to me that taking care of myself really has benefits, even when it's hard to do so sometimes. Makeup and skincare has taken care of me…or more accurately, it’s helped me to take care of myself.”

Related: The 12-Step Routine That Gives Me the Dewy Skin of a Newborn Baby

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