by
Study Suggests “Genuine” Smiling Can Reduce Stress!
When someone is down and out and feeling glum, it’s hard not to tell them to cheer up and turn that frown upside down. Well, according to psychological scientists Tara Kraft and Sarah Pressman of the University of Kansas, there are potential benefits of smiling and how it affects individuals’ ability to recover from episodes of stress.
“Age old adages, such as ‘grin and bear it’ have suggested smiling to be not only an important nonverbal indicator of happiness but also wishfully promotes smiling as a panacea for life’s stressful events,” says Kraft. “We wanted to examine whether these adages had scientific merit; whether smiling could have real health-relevant benefits.”
There are two types of smiles. The standard smile, engages the muscles surrounding the mouth, and the genuine or Duchenne smile, uses the muscles surrounding both the mouth and eyes.
There were 169 participants from a Midwestern university involved in the study. They were instructed to hold chopsticks in their mouths in such a way that they engaged facial muscles used to create a neutral facial expression, a standard smile, or a Duchenne smile. Chopsticks were essential to the task because they forced people to smile without them being aware that they were doing so: only half of the group members were actually instructed to smile.
Participants were asked to work on multitasking activities. What the participants didn’t know was that the multitasking activities were designed to be stressful. The first stress-inducing activity required the participants to trace a star with their non-dominant hand by looking at a reflection of the star in a mirror. The second stress-inducing activity required participants to submerge a hand in ice water.
The results of the study suggest that smiling during brief stressors can help to reduce the intensity of the body’s stress response, regardless of whether a person actually feels happy.
If you’re having trouble smiling and being happy, then click here. You will start to believe that it’s possible to attract happiness into your life.
Resource: Association of Psychological Science
