Researchers are finding that wearing a smile brings certain benefits, like slowing down the heart and reducing stress. This may even happen when people aren't aware they are forming a smile, according to a recent study. The work follows research that established that the act of smiling can make you feel happier.
A study published in the journal Psychological Science found that people who smiled after engaging in stress-inducing tasks showed a greater reduction in heart rate than people who maintained a neutral facial expression. The study, which involved 170 participants, got people to smile unknowingly by making them hold a pair of chopsticks in three different ways in their mouth. One way forced people to maintain a neutral expression, another prompted a polite smile, and a third resulted in a full smile that uses the muscles around the mouth and the eyes.
We saw a steeper decline in heart rate and a faster physiological stress recovery when they were smiling," even though the participants weren't aware they were making facial expressions, says Sarah Pressman, co-author of the study and an assistant psychology professor at University of California, Irvine.
Studies have found that the intensity of a person's smile can help predict life satisfaction over time and even longevity. What's unclear is whether smiling reflects a person's overall happiness or if the act of smiling contributes to that happiness. Marianne LaFrance, a psychology professor at Yale University, believes it is a bit of both.
"It's probably bidirectional," she says. "People who smile more tend to elicit more positive connections with other people," which in turn help make you happier and healthier.
And what effect do people who smile have on others?
Experts say there is a real positive impact. Marco Iacoboni, a lab director at the UCLA Brain Mapping Center, says when people see a smile, so-called mirror neurons fire in their brain and evoke a similar neural response as if they were smiling themselves.
Source: The Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2013
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