Stress and moon face: What experts say [Video]

Social media users just won’t stop talking about how the stress hormone cortisol can cause cheeks and eyelids to swell out of recognition, a condition dubbed “moon face.”

“Your face is like a moon, it can be very circular,” one woman claims on TikTok. “It can look swollen and inflamed.”

“It’s from high cortisol, aka high stress,” a woman says in another post. “When I was going through the pandemic I was like (she puffs out her cheeks) balloon face.”

As people scurry to fit more and more into each day, constant stress can be a reality in today’s busy society. But can such stress actually expand your face?

“While chronic stress can lead to increased levels of cortisol in the body, those levels don’t usually rise high enough to create a moon face,” said dermatologist Dr. Rajani Katta, a clinical assistant professor at the Baylor College of Medicine in …