Beauty Series #7: Beauty Thermostat

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Welcome to Park Avenue
Plastic Surgery Class,

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the podcast where we explore controversies
and breaking issues in plastic

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surgery. I'm your co-host, Summer Hardy,

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a clinical assistant at Bass
Plastic Surgery in New York City.

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I'm excited to be here with Dr. Lawrence
Bass, Park Avenue plastic surgeon,

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educator and technology innovator.

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The title of today's episode
is Beauty Thermostat.

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This is the sister episode to Beauty Lens.

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Looking at the main approaches to
thinking about our beauty needs and which

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features to address. So tell me, Dr. Bass,

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what is the beauty thermostat
and why is it important?

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Well, beauty lens and beauty thermostat,

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these are principles that
help define how patients think

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about their appearance and decide about
treatments because everyone decides

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this differently.

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So everyone has their individual
set point or focus for

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their beauty lens and set point
for their beauty thermostat.

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So this is more a principle that you can

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actually use as an analytical tool
to understand and channel your

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thoughts,

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making it easier to choose what
to do and feel confident in that

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decision.

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Avoiding pitfalls and understanding the
motivations a little bit along the way.

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The beauty thermostat is
mated with the beauty lens,

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which we discussed in a sister
podcast that has already released.

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The two principles together
embody a critical paradigm in

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understanding how people identify
features of their appearance that they're

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dissatisfied with and
choose how to pursue plastic

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surgery treatments.

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Beauty thermostat is about sensitivity.

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How much variation has to occur
in your appearance before the

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thermostat flips on,

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and you go ahead with the treatment
rather than whether the temperature is set

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to high or low,

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because that's really how a thermostat
works. It doesn't keep you at

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exactly a certain temperature.

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A little bit of temperature
change past where it's

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set will not turn the thermostat on,

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but once the temperature changes enough,

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suddenly the thermostat is
on and action is being taken

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to heat or cool the room. Same idea here.

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If there's a tiny change, you're not
going to chase treatments. You wake up,

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you look a little different than after
you clean yourself up before going out of

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the house.

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But once there's a big enough change,

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you choose to go ahead
and start doing plastic

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surgery treatments,

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how much that change needs to be
differs from person to person,

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and that's what we're talking about.

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Okay. Thanks for explaining all of that.

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What happens when your
thermostat is set on low or high?

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So there's some virtues to
high sensitivity and virtues

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to low sensitivity as well
as some pitfalls or flaws.

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Like everything in life,

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there are good things and bad things
about being any particular way.

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So if you're very sensitive,

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you have a high sensitivity
beauty thermostat,

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you'll catch things early
when they're still small,

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when a small fix may work to address them,

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and you're not likely to miss
or ignore things for very long.

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The virtue of having a low
sensitivity beauty thermostat is that

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you'll only chase the major issues,

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ones that you're sure are
meaningful and it's a very

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efficient both time and
money efficient and simple

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way to approach your appearance.

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That makes sense. What are the flaws
of being set very low or very high?

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So as I said, of course, nothing
in life is all good or all bad.

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So there are flaws,

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and if you are a high
sensitivity beauty thermostat,

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the problem with that is
produces a lot of anxiety.

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Every little thing you see starts
to be bad enough that you want to

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chase it. So that's a hard way to live,

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and it's hard to define a stopping
point because there's always something

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that's perceptible and is
identified as a problem.

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That being said,

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if you have a very low
sensitivity for your beauty

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thermostat, you never really look
your best or even close to it.

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You only chase an issue when it
becomes really obvious and you

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identify issues late in the game,

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which means a bigger fix
is likely to be needed.

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I'm starting to see how significant the
consequences can be at the end of the

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day. What is the right set point?

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Well, that's the million dollar question.

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The first thing to understand is
there's no perfect or ideal set

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point, but the most benefit probably
occurs somewhere in the middle,

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moderation in all things.

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So where exactly can change
over time based on what your

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life priorities are?

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And it's going to differ from
individual to individual.

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So we should look closely to
see what's going on right?

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Closely, but not too closely.
If you think it's perfect,

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you're just not looking close enough,

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but just because it's not perfect doesn't
mean you should do something about it.

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In other words,

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don't be so sensitive with your
beauty thermostat that you do

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something about everything
you can perceive.

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Can you give some examples of why you
shouldn't be preoccupied with perfect?

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Well, it's like the trauma
of the magnifying mirror.

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When you look at yourself in a
picture or you look at yourself

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in a full length mirror
when you're dressing,

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when your friends look at you, your
family members, your coworkers,

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they see the big picture. And that's
how we project ourselves all day,

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every day. When you look
in the magnifying mirror,

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all of a sudden you see all kinds of
teeny little things that the outside world

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really doesn't see,

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and that really are not critical
parts of our appearance.

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So it is a very ego
deflating experience to look

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closely in a magnifying mirror,

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and that's probably a good enough
reason why you shouldn't do that.

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If you look at a burnished or
polished metal or glass surface to the

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naked eye, that might look
perfectly smooth, but if
you look under a microscope,

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it's anything but smooth.
But that doesn't mean glass isn't

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smooth and we can't see through it.

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It just means that nothing is perfect.

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Nothing is exactly how it
projects at a working scale

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when you look at it on a tiny scale.

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The final example is
thinking of celebrities.

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So celebrities are in this situation
where beauty and perfection

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must be achieved at a
really, really high level.

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The level of detail is
important, not because making

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the celebrity themselves
crazy or materially

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affecting how they think about themselves,

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but it's affecting how
much work they can get.

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And so they don't worry about it
the same way. It's about work.

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It's not about their sense of self.

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But that being said,

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because their ability to get
work is critically important,

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it's a very hard way to
live, which fortunately,

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most of us are not held
to that same standard

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in terms of our daily lives.

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Got it. So if you know
you're very high or low,

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should you try to change
or just be the way you are?

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That's a very philosophical
question, Summer,

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and changing your personality or outlook
is one of the most difficult things

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for people to do to some extent.

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We all have to be who we are,

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and your plastic surgeon
will flex to your set point.

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Still knowing where you're
set may help you guard against

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excess at one extreme or the other,

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and do a better job of creating some
balance in your decision making.

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That makes a lot of sense.

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And how much should we listen to our
friends and family about our appearance?

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Well, we talked about this issue
a little bit with the beauty lens

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episode.

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What you should be worrying about
is how you feel about things.

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But we do have to be affected at least

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a little bit by what family, friends,

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people in the public
see how they look at us.

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We want to project a certain image. Mostly
we have to be happy with how we look,

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but we have to be cognizant,
at least in a small degree,

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that we look presentable
to the outside world.

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But what people in the outside
world see and what they say are

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two very different things, and
sometimes they can be really,

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really picky over small,
inconsequential details.

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Picture your mother when you were a
teenager criticizing everything about what

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you did. Sometimes people can be mean,

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even if they're your
friends or family members,

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and sometimes they can
be totally oblivious.

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You have some very obvious
feature that's not good,

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or you're healing from a treatment
or a procedure and things don't look

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normal, but they completely miss it.

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So in my view, at the end of the day,

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there's not a lot of probative
value or truth and what you're

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getting in feedback
from the outside world.

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There are too many other
motivations going on.

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Okay, now bottom line it for me.

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How should these tools be used to help
people decide what features they don't

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like and what treatments to go ahead with?

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So these were what I call deciding rules.

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And my big rules of thumb
that I tell patients

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over and over and over in
my practice, go like this.

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If you see it and your
plastic surgeon sees it and

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it bothers you and we have
a reliable way to fix it

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or improve it substantially,

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then it's reasonable to go ahead.

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If the patient sees it
but the surgeon doesn't,

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they can't really fix it for you.

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If the surgeon sees it but the patient
doesn't or they don't care about it,

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then there's really no reason to go
ahead and do anything just because the

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surgeon sees it.

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And if there's no reliable way
to get a substantial improvement,

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it's probably better to hold off. Overall,

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you have to find a way to accept
that it's an imperfect world,

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and this is an infinitely
frustrating experience for

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perfectionistic plastic surgeons
and perfectionistic patients. And

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that's what most of us are
in the world of surgery,

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perfectionists.

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But it's a universal truth
and an always condition

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that things are going to be imperfect.

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So we have to try really hard to
get things as close to perfect

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as we can get, but not make
ourselves crazy because we don't,

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at the end of the day,
get to literal perfection.

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So overall,

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what this means in terms of beauty
thermostat is that we have more trouble

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from high sensitivity
thermostat settings than lower

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sensitivity settings.

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Way too low and your appearance
can be very off-putting to others.

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We do still live in a social group
where issues of grooming and hygiene

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impact how we fit in and
how people respond to us.

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But overall,

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your inner peace and it relies on

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having some perspective
in life about how much

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time, energy,

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and money it's worth investing into
your beauty and how much it's worth

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stressing about.

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You can't have that be all day
every day, but you can't ignore it.

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So a middle ground is almost always right.

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Thank you Dr. Bass for laying out these
powerful concepts that explain what

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drives patient decision making
about plastic surgery treatments.

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Thank you for listening to the Park
Avenue Plastic Surgery Class podcast.

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