Fighting Age With Yoga, Creams, Injections, Lasers

I think I look tired. And it’s slowing me down. Not because I actually am tired and moving more slowly, but because I’ve been spending so much time looking in the mirror, studying the fact that I look tired. It was bound to catch up to me eventually. You can’t get away with being over 40 for long before some signs of aging start to creep onto your face. Frankly, I think I’ve been kind of getting away with something up until now. Nothing is sagging (above my collar, at least), and I don’t have serious wrinkles yet (that I can see without my glasses, that is). But one day, not long ago, I realized I look tired. Which has become exhausting.

[SIGNUP]The first and most obvious attempt to fix this problem was actually getting more rest. Unfortunately it didn’t work. I am quite accomplished at sleeping in on weekends and no longer make it through Nightline most nights and yet, I still look tired. Diet and exercise aren’t helping either. I drink water, skip caffeine, eat tons of produce and feel like I spend so much of my life in downward-facing dog, most of the blood in my body should be residing in my face by now. It hasn’t made a damn bit of difference.

Which brought me to the second round of attempting to correct the unfixable: eye creams! I think I have invested in almost every brand out there from the drug store to Sephora to Neiman Marcus. I have roller balls and silver applicators to stimulate the delicate eye area, de-puffing agents, moisturizing deep treatments and rich night repairs. So what if my daughter’s college fund is depleted? I must stop the signs of aging now! Priorities, people. But the eye creams aren’t working either.

Next I looked online, Googling “dark circle treatments” and “under-eye bags” just to see what’s out there. Yes, I realize I have too much time on my hands and a surplus of vanity, but we all have to have a hobby. This search presented me with the true nature of my problem—loss of fat under my eyes due to age, which kind of sucks because there is no cream for that. There are, however, a host of cosmetic options available—for a price, of course. There are all kinds of injections and laser treatments. In fact, there are so many varieties of each I can’t even imagine how one chooses the right procedure. And after reading about every single one of them, I was able to add frown lines to my list of problems.

The choices abound. To plump my under-eye area back to youthfulness, I can have many brands of synthetic fillers injected, which sounds a bit creepy. To keep it natural, I could have my own fat harvested from a location on my body that has an abundance of fat (yeah, no problem there). Then they purify my currently impure fat from one problem area and finally inject it into my new problem area, which sounds taxing and arduous, to say the least. The dilemma: What if the natural or synthetic injection turns out lumpy or distorted? It’s pretty hard to hide that mistake in such a prominent place. And I’m totally phobic of looking like that Cat Lady or one of those women you see on plastic surgery run amok TV shows. I’d feel pretty stupid if I ended up disfigured because I thought I looked a little tired. And what if I spend all that money and the results don’t last? I fear after the investment and research, I’ll end up looking … tired.

Lasers sounded like a good alternative. It seems fairly innocuous with little downtime. I might be temporarily red or blotchy, but my collagen production will be stimulated. Except I read the fine print, which says you can’t drink alcohol for two weeks before and after. A month without wine while I’m married and raising a child is not an option. It’s just not going to happen. Not without bloodshed. I can just picture my mal-healed laser results because I went and constricted my blood vessels with sauvignon blanc.

I asked some of my friends—the ones who have previously disclosed that their beauty might not be entirely natural—about their experiences. Is it really a good idea to have anything injected under your eyes, I wanted to know. They gave mixed reviews on that, which leaves me pretty much back where I started. But everyone recommends their doctor, so now I have a stack of names and numbers. What I could really use are the names of the doctors who treated the people I know who have had unfortunate Botox, fillers or surgery, so I can avoid them. But I imagine it’s just bad form to ask.

So the result of my searching for a solution to being tired-looking is that I’m just tired of the whole thing. For now, by default, I’m going to stay looking tired. The new frown lines, however, have got to go.