Plastic Surgery – changes how you look on the outside, but the changes don’t stop there. Plastic surgery also changes how you feel on the inside. For many people, this combination leads to a complete overhaul in their quality of life.
The World Health Organization defines one’s excellence of life as “an individual’s perception of their place in life in the situation of the culture and value schemes in which they live and in kin to their goals, expectations, standards, and concerns.”[1] A key part of this definition is that an “individual’s perception” determines their quality of life. Quality of life is subjective, and only you can determine what’s best for you.
Plastic surgery, when pursued with realistic expectations, impacts quality of life in big ways. For some people, it changes everything. If you’re considering plastic surgery, read on to see how your quality of life can be improved in ways you may not have even considered.
Improved Physical Function
Changes to the body can improve physical function by making everyday activities easier. Rhinoplasty variations the arrival of the nose, but it also can make breathing easier. Exercise is easier for many women after they’ve had breast reduction surgery.
As we age, the skin around our eyes ages, too. Blepharoplasty used to repair a drooping eyelid also may improve field of vision problems. Removal of excess body skin can increase range of motion, allowing someone to exercise more effectively. So, while it’s true that some plastic surgery is purely cosmetic, some forms improve how you can move through your life, too.
Increased Social Confidence
We may know we’re our own worst critics, but that doesn’t always help. When someone has a feature they feel needs to be changed, it undermines their social confidence. As social anxiety grows, it gets harder for some people to persuade themselves to meet new friends or socialize with existing ones.
Social media and the normalization of posed and filtered pictures influence people to view themselves harshly compared to others. People don’t always have a real sense of what others look like, but they know what they see in the mirror. Negative self-comparisons with peers can lead to social anxiety. With plastic surgery, features you hate become features that help you feel more confident when interacting with others. When you love how you look, your quality of life is higher, too.
Better Romantic and Sexual Relationships
According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, love and belonging are necessary for self-actualization. Some men and women struggle with feelings of inadequacy regarding the parts of themselves they share with a romantic partner. Although these areas may be reserved for privileged eyes, people want those eyes to be impressed by what they see. Intimacy suffers, and so does their quality of life.
All types of plastic surgery have the potential to increase confidence in dating and sexual relations. Vulvo-vaginal surgeries, such as vaginal rejuvenation and labiaplasty, can help women achieve greater sensation and the genital aesthetic they desire. With these changes come increased enjoyment and greater sexual confidence.
Reduction in Depression
Unhappiness all too easily can lead to a spiral into depression, especially when the problem is as fundamental as one’s appearance. People can’t avoid seeing what they don’t like about themselves; it’s what they see in the mirror every day. Depression severely diminishes quality of life and sometimes must be addressed with the help of a professional even before seeking plastic surgery.
When someone considering plastic surgery has a consultation at Yarish Plastic Surgery, our surgeons take the time to listen carefully to what the patient wants. Our goal is to help you enhance your quality of life. We make sure the patient understands what surgery can and can’t accomplish. Patients need to have realistic expectations to be satisfied with the surgery, so we work to confirm we are all on the equal page before proceeding.
Improved Sense of Health and Well Being
Sometimes plastic surgery addresses an area that caused the patient to feel unhealthy or like good health was unattainable. Extra skin left behind after weight loss prevents a person from seeing the complete results of their hard work. It’s discouraging. They’ve put in the effort, but they don’t have the type of healthy body they desire.
A tummy tuck or surgery to remove excess skin from the arms and legs makes a massive difference in how healthy a person feels. After removing the sagging skin, the lean and toned body is finally visible. It’s a dramatic and exciting transformation that fosters a greater sense of health and well-being.
Improved Self-Esteem
A crooked nose or drooping eyelids may be fine for one person. However, it is a struggle for some to see the beauty in themselves because of these same features. Self-consciousness leads to self-esteem issues that are difficult to resolve without correction. Everyone may tell you it’s not a big deal, but to you it is. Your opinion matters.
Once the feature is corrected, you can look at yourself and feel good about what you see. Others may respond positively to the changes as well, reinforcing your feeling of improved self-esteem. You’re gorgeous, and you know it. And your quality of life soars when you feel good about yourself!
Motivation for a Healthier Lifestyle
A byproduct of plastic surgery is a motivation to lead a healthier life. Once you’ve attained the look you want, you take action to preserve that look. People who’ve had plastic surgery invest in themselves. By eating right and getting exercise, you give your body the care it needs to ensure your results last.
Beginning with the recovery process, patients feel motivated to improve their quality of life with changes to their lifestyle. Yarish Plastic Surgery surgeons believe skin and body rejuvenation doesn’t begin or end with surgery. So we help you on that road by presenting our “comprehensive rejuvenation concept” that is specially designed for your procedure. By helping you prepare your body and skin for surgery, we help you establish a self-care routine you can continue throughout recovery and beyond.
Feeling Younger and More Vital
Procedures designed to diminish the signs of aging don’t just make you look younger. They also make you feel youthful and more vital. Looking in the mirror before surgery, you saw an older person looking back at you. You felt changes related to aging were significant enough for you to take action. Now when your appearance in the mirror, you see a fresh, younger-looking face. It’s invigorating.
People treat you differently as well. Depending on the procedures you’ve had, you can look many years younger than you did. Everyone can see and feel vibrancy exuding from you. They treat you differently, and that makes you feel different, too.
Longer Life
When you take better care of yourself after plastic surgery, your body treats you better, too. Cessation of smoking and following a healthy diet and exercise plan can reduce the risk of disease. By adopting a healthier lifestyle, you increase the likelihood that you’ll have a longer life.
We are invested in our patients at Yarish Plastic Surgery. We’re eager to help you set goals for a longer, healthier life. During our consultation, we go over medical records carefully and get to know our patients. We remain invested in our patients after surgery as well. We want the best quality of life for them, and we do all we can to ensure it.
Increased Sense of Femininity or Masculinity
Trans and cis-gendered people experience a heightened sense of either femininity or masculinity depending on the surgery they desire. Gender-affirming surgery or trans facial surgery impact how someone sees themself as well as how the world sees them. The physical changes relieve conflict and can lead to long-term mental health benefits.
For cis-gendered individuals, body and facial changes can help them feel better about how they look as a male or female. Breast surgery can factor heavily for anyone. For women, breast augmentation can make a woman feel more feminine and attractive to potential partners. Men with gynecomastia often struggle with their self-image, associating fatty breasts with women. By eliminating the extra fat and glandular tissue through plastic surgery, these men can feel more comfortable being shirtless and more masculine overall.
Possible Career Status Changes
An interesting thing happens when someone feels more confident and self-assured: people around them notice. Moreover, confident people are more likely to be seen as capable and better suited for advancement.
It’s not just the newfound confidence, however. As much as we don’t like it or wish it weren’t so, just being attractive can improve your career. According to one study, “physically attractive individuals are more likely to be interrogated for jobs and hired, they are more probable to advance rapidly in their careers through common promotions, and they earn higher wages than unattractive individuals.
More Willingness to Try New Experiences
When you look your best, you’re braver and more willing to try new things. This is especially true when anxiety or embarrassment about your appearance held you back in the past.
Body sculpting surgery in particular can open doors to exciting new adventures. Water and beach explorations are no longer experiences wrought with discomfort and shame. Confidence in your new look means the summer season is exciting! Bring on the shorts, tank tops, and bikinis! It’s time to have more fun in the sun!
Increased Self Love
It can feel like your body betrayed you when you can’t look the way you want. Frustration like this leads to toxic self-loathing. Yarish Plastic Surgery doesn’t want you to feel this way! Once your looks match how you want to be seen, you can positively embrace your body and yourself. After surgery, we want you to feel a sense of self-love. Improved quality of life means you no longer feel deprived of a healthy mind-body connection.
When you love yourself, you can practice better self-compassion, too. One study showed a psychophysiological response pattern of reduced arousal (reduced heart rate and skin conductance) and increased parasympathetic activation (increased heart rate variability) were unique to self-compassion conditions.
This pattern is associated with effective emotional regulation in times of adversity. By regulating emotions better, you’re better able to handle life’s challenging situations and cope with problems that come your way.
Freedom From Pain
Plastic surgery is not done purely for aesthetic reasons. Some people seek plastic surgery to alleviate pain or physical ailments created by body or facial features. Breast reduction surgery is one procedure frequently sought out for pain relief reasons.
More proportional breasts are a cosmetic advantage of breast reduction surgery. For many women, this is just a side benefit, however. Large breasts can cause health issues that can be remedied only by breast reduction surgery. Bra straps bite into the shoulders and cause discomfort and pain for many large-breasted women. Back pain and neck pain, as well as head pains, are common complaints because the weight of the breasts causes issues with body alignment. Moisture, heat, and friction from a lack of air circulation where skin rubs together can lead to pain, chafing, raw skin, and rashes like intertrigo. By reducing breast size, these issues can be resolved.
Pride of Goal Realization
Few experiences rival the process of undergoing plastic surgery, and it is a process. What begins as a desire to make a change grows into a research project involving acquiring information, learning from others, and finding a board-certified surgeon experienced in performing the surgery you want.
Money must be saved and recovery plans laid, and then the actual surgery takes place. Depending on your procedure, recovery may take weeks or months. In the end, you can gaze at yourself in the mirror and appreciate how far you’ve come. These changes are the result of your planning and hard work. You set a goal and reached it. Take pride in your accomplishment!
Quality of Life Delivers a High-Quality Life
When you take the time to focus on yourself, you build a sense of autonomy and independence. Even if others supported you through the process, only you went through the procedure and recovery. By choosing to have plastic surgery, you’re investing in yourself. You’re making yourself a priority. So hold your head high and enjoy all the beauty and joy life has to offer. You know you deserve it!
“The World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL),” World Health Organization (World Health Organization, March 1, 2012), https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/WHO-HIS-HSI-Rev.2012.03.
Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, “Attractive People Get Unfair Advantages at Work. AI Can Help.,” Harvard Business Review (Harvard Business Publishing, October 31, 2019), https://hbr.org/2019/10/attractive-people-get-unfair-advantages-at-work-ai-can-help.
Willem Kuyken Hans Kirschner, “Soothing Your Heart and Feeling Connected: A New Experimental Paradigm to Study the Benefits of Self-Compassion – Hans Kirschner, Willem Kuyken, Kim Wright, Henrietta Roberts, Claire Brejcha, Anke Karl, 2019,” SAGE Journals (Association for Psychological Science, February 6, 2019), https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2167702618812438.