Smiling lowers stress levels
Stressed out? Turn that frown upside down and you might just feel
better, new research contends.
Researchers at the University of
Kansas subjected college students to anxiety-inducing
tasks and found that those
who smiled through them appeared to have less stress.
The study, led by research
psychologists Tara Kraft and Sarah Pressman, is scheduled for publication in Psychological
Science.
"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," Kraft said
in a journal news release. "We wanted to examine whether these adages had
scientific merit; whether smiling could have real health-relevant benefits."
How the study was done
How the study was done
To do so, they had 169
university students engage in tasks known to induce stress, such as
tracing a star using their non-dominant hand while looking at a reflection of
the star in a mirror. Another task had the participants plunge their hand into
icy water.
The students performed these
tasks under three conditions: not smiling; being explicitly instructed to
smile; and while holding chopsticks in their mouth in a way that forced the
face to smile.
The researchers included the
chopsticks condition because they wanted to gauge the effect of
"genuine" smiling (which involves the muscles around the mouth and
eyes), and so-called "standard" smiles, which involve only the
muscles around the mouth -- the kind of smile induced by the chopsticks.
Kraft and Pressman used heart
rate measurements and self-reported stress levels to assess how perturbed the
participants were during the tasks.
What the study found
What the study found
The study found that
participants who wore any kind of smile were less stressed during the tasks
than those with neutral facial expressions, and stress levels dipped especially
low for folks with "genuine" smiles.
According to the authors, this
means that even forcing a smile during an unpleasant task or experience might
actually lower your stress level, even if you're not feeling happy.
So, Pressman reasoned, "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. Not only will
it help you 'grin and bear it' psychologically, but it might actually help your
heart health as well."
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