Want to look good on your first date? Give your partner a couple of beers and your wrinkles and other skin imperfections will magically disappear!
That’s the advice of researchers in Scotland who found that the “beer goggles” effect may have a scientific basis. In that case, beauty is indeed in the eye of the beer holder.
The “beer goggles” effect refers to the infamous phenomenon wherein members of the opposite sex appear to be more attractive when more beer is consumed. At first, scientists thought this was simply the result of too much alcohol that distorts one’s perception of reality. However, researchers found the precise manner in which beer affects the brain.
At the International Congress on Behavioral Medicine in Finland, Professor Barry Jones from Glasgow University’s psychology department and his fellow academic Ben Jones from St. Andrews University said alcohol stimulates the nucleus accumbens, the part of the brain that judges facial attractiveness. Men and women who consumed moderate amounts of alcohol often found the faces of the opposite sex 25 percent more attractive than their sober counterparts.
“Everyone’s heard of the beer goggles effect but we wanted to measure once and for all whether a moderate amount of alcohol increases the judgment of facial attractiveness,” Barry Jones said.
In their study, the Joneses recruited 80 students from Glasgow University. Half of the students had drunk up to four units of alcohol, equivalent to a maximum of two pints of lager or two-and-a-half glasses of wine. The rest remained sober.
The two groups were later asked to rate the color photos of 120 male and female students aged 18 to 26 from St. Andrews University. The tipsy group found the people in the photos more attractive than the ones who didn’t drink.
“The effect can reportedly be traced to the nucleus accumbens. When you’re looking at another human being, the nucleus accumbens is the area of the brain that decides how attractive that human being’s face is. If you look at, say, George Clooney or Angelina Jolie, this area of your brain probably experiences increased neural firing. In other words, it’s stimulated,” explained Julia Layton in HowStuffWorks.com.
“As it turns out, alcohol, all by itself, stimulates the nucleus accumbens. So when you’ve had a few drinks and you look at a face you may have judged as unattractive when you were sober, your brain, under the influence of alcohol, tells you that this face is in fact somewhat attractive. And the increase in perceived attractiveness seems to be directly proportional to the amount of alcohol consumed,” she added.
Researchers at England’s Manchester University said alcohol is not the only factor involved in the “beer goggles” effect. They said the perception of beauty can also be influenced by the brightness of the area, the quality of the drunken person’s eyesight, the amount of smoke in the air, and the distance of the person being observed.
However, keeping your partner drunk all the time to look beautiful and hide your wrinkles may not be a practical idea, considering that too much alcohol is bad for the health. To diminish fine lines and wrinkles and keep your skin soft, smooth, and healthy, try Dermaxin. This nourishing cream is a cost effective alternative to expensive and risky injections. Go to http://www.dermaxin.com for details.
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