Mental Health and Body Mods

 In 1934 a psychologist determined that there was a correlation between mental health and body modification, albeit a negative one. At the time tattoos and piercings were considered a sign of a character deficit, that something was abnormal or wrong with a person’s mental state to have or want such things. Thankfully things have changed, though it took until 2000 for a study to finally disprove this idea and many people still hold outdated opinions on those with tattoos. 

Today is National Mental health Day so let’s examine the connection why getting tattoos and piercings can actually help your mental health.

Brain Boost 

When you experience pain your body produces all sorts of things. Many of these chemicals are also happy chemicals or feel good. They give you a boost and can make some people feel high. The endorphins rushing through your system can be quite a mood booster as is the dopamine. I am very guilty of using piercings and tattoos to fix a particularly sad day or even to help get over a break up.  These chemicals can often take days to fade and are intended on helping you feel less pain. 

The endorphins etc keep your mood high so even if you’re struggling this can “hack” those emotions by giving you those chemicals anyway. It’s a short term boost but it can get you out of that funk!

Coping Mechanism

Choosing body mods as a way of transferring mental pain into physical can help you through a particularly emotionally stressful time. By experiencing physical pain it gives you a more “painful” thing to focus on and allows whatever mental turmoil to take second place. While some may not see this as a healthy choice, choosing body mods can be a lot safer than other options such as cutting. There have been several studies showing that body mods release a similar brain activity to cutting. This allows those who have a tendency to self-harm to have a healthier outlet. 

Heal personal Trauma

Many of us have experienced personal trauma and there’s several reasons body mods may help. Firstly, marking the event allows us a distinct “before and after” similar to experiencing trauma. By creating our own “after” by choice we take control. Similarly, those who have experienced trauma and lost control over their bodies in some way can take it back by choosing to alter their physical appearance. Whether it’s a genital piercing or a tattoo of a cat with a knife every modification is personal. 

Exerting control over your identity is something most of us are familiar with. Dying your hair after a break up is a common way of coping yet it’s considered far less permanent and much more accepted than choosing body mods.  Yet for those with more complex trauma making a permanent change is a far more rewarding choice. 

Therapy

By no means are tattoo artists and piercers qualified to be therapists. But sometimes, just like your hair stylist, you need someone who isn’t one of your friends and family to let things out to. Most people want to chit-chat during their appointment so we can help by being that listening ear. Just check in on your artist first and make sure they’ve got the mental bandwidth first. It won’t be the first time we’d had someone call their appointment “therapy” 

Helping Self Esteem

Many of us suffer with low self esteem. A dislike of your physical appearance isn’t so unusual but fortunately body mods can help. By choosing to cover things we don’t like. (Scars for example) or pierce body parts that we would like to accent or adorn we can boost our opinion of our physical self. Changing something you don’t like or accenting something you do with a piercing or tattoo is an easy way to quickly see a permanent difference in your appearance. 

We want to love ourselves, and sometimes that’s hard. It’s a hard thing to fix your self-image but it’s something you can work towards. If that new piercing/tattoo is what works then we’d love to have you. 

It might be time to Contact us and see what we can do to improve your mental health.