Avoid that looking glass if you want to stop worrying about your appearance - staring into the mirror does more harm to your psychology than you realise.

A study, published in the journal Behaviour Research and Therapy, in which participants sat for 10 minutes in front of the mirror showed that they became more depressed and anxious about their looks even if they had reported being happy with their appearance at the beginning.

Scientists were surprised to find that staring in the mirror not only affected those diagnosed with body dysmorphic disorders such as anorexia, but that even those who were considered to have perfectly healthy body images started showing distress at their looks.

Even though it might cause us some distress, researchers found that men and women tend to look in the mirror many times per day. For men, the number was around 18 times per day, whilst women averaged 38 times at the mirror each day.

The researchers, who hail from the Institute of Psychiatry in Britain, wanted to compare the effects of mirror-gazing amongst body dysmorphic patients. To do this, they used a control group of 25 people with relatively normal perceptions of their body but found that even this group was affected by the mirror exercises.

Researchers believe that the amount of time spent looking into a mirror might have something to do with it. While we like to glance in the mirror to check that we're looking presentable, most people won't spend as long as 10 minutes scrutinizing their looks - the amount of time that the scientists had the participants stand at the mirror.