4 minute read
Happy face
PUT ON YOUR HAPPY FACE
SMILING, EVEN WHEN YOU DON’T FEEL LIKE IT, MAY HELP TO LIFT YOUR SPIRITS
WORDS SARAH MARINOS
So, you’ve had a bad day. You spent hours at work dealing with one issue after another, you got stuck in traffic on the way home and now your kids won’t stop fighting over who gets to watch what on TV. And tomorrow is likely to bring more of the same.
The last thing you probably feel like doing right now is smiling. But forcing a smile to your lips may be just what you need to do to make the world look a little brighter and to lift your spirits.
New research from the University of South Australia has found that, when it comes to smiling, “faking it ’til you make it” may change how you feel about the world around you.
Smile muscles
It seems that moving our facial muscles to form a smile tricks our mind into being more positive.
“When your muscles say you’re happy, you’re more likely to see the world around you in a positive way,” says Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos, a human and artificial cognition expert at the University of South Australia.
“When you forcefully practice smiling, it stimulates the amygdala — the emotional centre of the brain,” Dr Marmolejo-Ramos says. “So, if you use the muscles in your face as if you were smiling, your brain activates areas that are used when you actually smile and releases neurotransmitters or chemicals associated with happy emotional states.”
Positive approach
In his research, Dr Marmolejo-Ramos placed a pen between the teeth of people, forcing them to use the “smile” muscles. Placing a pen between the lips uses frowning facial muscles, which does not have the same happy effect on brain chemicals.
“A ‘fake it ’til you make it’ approach could have more credit than we expect,” he says.
“But you can’t just stick a pen in your teeth and be happy — you have to try to see positives in your situation and life. Be realistic, but don’t be negative all the time as you will always be frustrated.”
The Botox effect
Earlier research from the University of Cardiff also found that facial expressions impact how we feel. It found people who used Botox to reduce frown lines were less likely to have negative moods, perhaps because paralysing facial muscles that help us frown makes it harder to form unhappy expressions and so makes it harder to feel sad.
“The expressions that we make on our face affects the emotions we feel; we smile because we are happy but smiling also makes us happy,” the University of Cardiff School of Psychology’s Michael Lewis reports.
“Treatment with drugs like Botox prevents the patient from being able to make a particular expression. For example, those treated for frown lines with Botox are not able to frown as strongly. This interrupts the feedback they would normally get from their face and they feel less sad,” Dr Lewis reports.
But using Botox to reduce crows’ feet has the opposite effect because we use the muscles around our eyes when we form a real smile and paralysing those muscles reduces the strength of a smile.
Kick-start the real deal
The Happiness Institute psychologist and founder Timothy Sharp agrees that smiling can have a beneficial effect on mood, even if we don’t much feel like smiling.
“Real, meaningful and lasting happiness needs to be authentic and genuine,” Dr Sharp says.
“That being said, the idea of faking it ’til you make it can kickstart real emotions that might then lead to other real changes that could boost real happiness.”
Work towards creating a life that is genuinely fulfilling and satisfying.
Remember that we might not feel happy all the time but we will enjoy positive emotions most of the time, Dr Sharp says.
“Set and work towards meaningful goals like taking care of your health, building positive relationships and connections and fostering hope and optimism,” he says. “For a ‘quick fix’, doing something fun or funny or forcing a smile can get the ball rolling and create the momentum necessary to enjoy more positive emotions.”
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