Simply Smiling Can Actually Reduce Stress

July 31, 2012 - Smithsonian Magazine
Simply Smiling Can Actually Reduce Stress
Posted By: Joseph Stromberg
http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2012/07/simply-smiling-can-actually-reduce-stress/?utm_source=smithsonianinsider&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=201208-insider

It sounds like the most useless advice imaginable: Just put on a happy
face. Conventional wisdom is that smiling is an effect of feeling
happy, rather than the other way around. Simply smiling in stressful
situations can't possibly make you feel any better, right?

Wrong. A fascinating new study by University of Kansas psychologists
that will soon be published in the journal Psychological Science
indicates that, in some circumstances, smiling can actually reduce
stress and help us feel better.

"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,"
said researcher Tara Kraft. "We wanted to examine whether these adages
had scientific merit; whether smiling could have real health-relevant
benefits."

To investigate the claim, the researchers recruited 169 willing
college students for a hands-on experiment. But they had to engage in
a bit of deception. Actually telling the participants that they were
testing whether smiling would make them happier would have distorted
the results, so the students were told that the experiment was about
multi-tasking.

First, the participants were instructed on how to perform an unusual
task: holding chopsticks in their mouths in particular ways that
prompted various facial expressions. They were divided into three
groups, one that was taught how to form a neutral expression, one that
learned how to form a normal smile, and one that was instructed to
form a Duchenne smile (also known as a genuine smile), which involves
the use of eye muscles, as well as those around the mouth.
Additionally, only half of the smilers actually heard the world
"smile" during the learning phase; the others were simply taught how
to hold the chopsticks in a way that produced smiles, without the
expression being identified as such.

Next, the students were put in "multi-tasking situations" that were
intentionally designed to be stressful. In the first one, they were
asked to trace a star shape with their non-dominant hand while looking
only at a mirror image of it, and were misled about the average
person's accuracy in completing the task. While attempting to execute
the maneuver with as few errors as possible to win a reward (a
chocolate), they were continually reminded to hold the chopsticks in
their mouths to maintain the intended facial expression. Afterward,
they were instructed to do the same as their hands were submerged in
ice water.

During and after each of these tasks, the participants' heart rates
were continuously monitored, and at regular intervals, they were asked
to report their levels of stress.

The experiment's findings were startling. As a whole, the smilers had
lower heart rates while recovering from the stressful tasks than those
who had assumed neutral expressions, and those with Duchenne smiles
had lower heart rates yet. Even those who were smiling only due to
their instructed chopstick position—without explicitly being told to
smile—showed the same effect. Since heart rate is an indicator of the
body's stress response, it seems as though the act of smiling actually
reduced the participants' overall stress level.

Most intriguingly, a small difference was noted in the self-reported
stress levels of the groups after the ice water task. Although the
amount of positive feelings declined for all participants after
putting their hands in ice water, the decline was slightly smaller for
smilers than for those with neutral expressions.

Researchers are baffled regarding why this might happen. The
connection between facial expressions and underlying mental states is
still largely unexplored, but some have suggested that smiling could
reduce levels of cortisol, a stress-related hormone. This study flips
our traditional understanding of emotion and appearance on its head:
Feeling good could sometimes be a consequence of smiling, not just the
other way around.

What does this mean for your daily life? When feeling stressed, try
forcing a smile on your face. If you can manage a genuine, Duchenne
smile—what people often refer to as "smiling with your eyes," not just
your mouth—that's even better. For whatever reason, forcing yourself
to look happier could actually end up helping you feel happier.

"The next time you are stuck in traffic or are experiencing some other
type of stress you might try to hold your face in a smile for a
moment," said Sarah Pressman, one of the researchers. "Not only will
it help you 'grin and bear it' psychologically, but it might actually
help your heart health as well."