Study: even a forced smile lifts your spirits

When we are happy, we smile. The corners of our lips and cheeks rise, and wrinkles appear around the eyes. But does it work in reverse? Can a fake smile improve your mood? According to a new study by an international team of psychologists, yes it can.

In scientific work led by Stanford University scientist Nicholas Coles saysthat a forced smile can actually make a person happier. According to the author, the effect is not strong enough to overcome depression, but it's still there.

The conclusions of scientists are based on the results of a large experiment involving 3878 people. Everyone was divided into three groups and asked to activate the “smile muscles” in different ways:

• the first during the experiments held a pen in her mouth, not touching it with her lips;
• the second imitated a Hollywood smile;
• the third tried to move the corners of her lips to her ears and lift her cheeks, using only the muscles of her face.

In each group, half of the participants completed the task by looking at hilarious images of puppies, kittens, flowers, and fireworks, while the other half simply saw a blank screen. To hide the purpose of the test, the researchers asked the participants to solve simple math problems. After each task, participants rated how happy they were.

After analyzing all the data, the researchers found a marked increase in the level of happiness in participants who mimicked a smile and worked their facial muscles. People from the first group with a pen in their mouth had no changes. Scientists believe that the fact is that they had to constantly compress teethwhich does not match a natural smile.

These arguments support the idea that human emotions are somehow related to muscle movements or other physical sensations. And it works both ways.