Smile, even if you want to scream, it’s good for your heart
View(s):Grinning and bearing it gets us through many of life’s tricky situations.But researchers have found smiling really does help reduce stress – and boost the health of the heart.A study from the University of Kansas investigated the potential benefits of smiling by looking at how different types of smiling, and the awareness of smiling, affects a person’s ability to recover from episodes of stress.
Study author Tara Kraft said: ‘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.
The team found smiling could indeed influence our physical state.
Smiles are generally divided into two categories: standard smiles, which use the muscles surrounding the mouth, and genuine or Duchenne smiles, which engage the muscles surrounding both the mouth and eyes.
Previous research shows that positive emotions can help during times of stress and that smiling can affect emotion; however, the work of Kraft and Pressman is the first of its kind to experimentally manipulate the types of smiles people make in order to examine the effects of smiling on stress.
The study found those who were instructed to smile and had Duchenne smiles had lower heart rate levels after the stressful activities compared to participants who held neutral expressions.
These findings show 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. ‘The next time you are stuck in traffic or are experiencing some other type of stress,’ says Ms Pressman, ‘you might try to hold your face in a smile for a moment. Not only will it help you ‘grin and bear it’ psychologically, but it might actually help your heart health as well!’
The study is in the journal Psychological Science. © Daily Mail
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