So that you simply obtained Botox. Meaning you—and your checking account—could also be questioning what you are able to do to ensure your outcomes final so long as attainable. In spite of everything, you don’t wish to half together with your hard-earned money any faster than you must for an additional touch-up, proper?

When you’ve been googling what you are able to do to cease it from carrying off too early, you might have stumbled upon a shocking tip: Restrict your train. One concept floating across the web is that exercises—significantly intense ones like HIIT, CrossFit, or working—could make the consequences of Botox wane faster. However is there any fact to that? Right here’s what we discovered.

Does train have an effect on how lengthy Botox outcomes final?

In a Reddit thread, some exercisers shared that onerous exercises made their injections fade quick. “I work out virtually every single day, generally greater than as soon as,” one particular person wrote, “and my Botox doesn’t final for sh*t.” One other shared that their Botox and lip filler wore off sooner than anticipated after they have been exercising exhausting and sometimes, whereas a separate commenter, who does CrossFit 5 to 6 occasions every week, talked about their physician warned them that frequency would possibly rapidly reduce the consequences of the therapy.

That is all anecdotal, in fact, and there’s not an entire lot of goal analysis displaying a definitive hyperlink between exhausting exercises and fewer endurance for Botox. Nevertheless, a small examine of 60 girls, lately revealed within the journal Toxins, concluded that a number of bodily exercise does appear to hinder its sturdiness. Over 90 days, girls who acquired the injections and reported low ranges of train (no precise exercises) confirmed much less exercise of their facial muscle tissue and extra lasting enchancment of their brow and eyebrow traces than girls who reported reasonable or excessive ranges of motion (both three or six days of CrossFit per week).

One speculation for this hyperlink? It could boil all the way down to metabolism, or the speed at which your physique breaks substances down to supply power. The idea goes like this: Train—particularly intense varieties like working—revs your physique up. The upper your metabolic price, the quicker your physique can theoretically break down any chemical, permitting it to dissipate out of your system extra readily, Annie Chiu, MD, a board-certified beauty dermatologist in Redondo Seashore, California, tells SELF. And the identical might apply to neuromodulators like Botox (in addition to to different injectables like facial fillers).

Merely elevating your coronary heart price—which naturally occurs throughout train—may additionally trigger your physique to metabolize Botox extra rapidly, she provides. One other concept is that intense bodily exercise might trigger Botox to detach out of your muscle receptors quicker, thus weakening its sturdiness, says Dr. Chiu. It may be that robust exercises lead you to repeatedly activate your facial muscle tissue—suppose: that “only one extra rep” grimace—probably inflicting them to override the consequences of the therapy quicker, she explains.

The caveat is that there is no such thing as a irrefutable proof that train positively impacts how lengthy Botox outcomes final. Even within the examine above, it’s attainable different elements have been at play to clarify the outcomes. As an example, the authors level out that earlier than Botox injections, the low bodily exercise group had much less extreme wrinkles than girls who exercised extra. But all of them obtained the identical dosage, a truth that might have swayed the outcomes. “Extra research are wanted earlier than any conclusions will be drawn,” Dr. Chiu says. Within the meantime, she provides, the information we do have ought to merely be considered as “suggestive.”

So what does this imply when you discover your Botox isn’t lasting so long as you’d like?

Botox tends to final three to 5 months—although the precise timing is tremendous individualized. Maybe the most important issue that impacts the length of your outcomes is genetics, says Dr. Chiu. Some individuals have genes that enable them to interrupt down the medicine extra rapidly than others, or have muscle receptors that don’t enable Botox to bind as strongly to them as another person’s. And a few people simply have a better resting metabolic price, which implies their our bodies will break down the medicine extra rapidly, Dr. Chiu explains.