Smiling speeds recovery from stress: study

the University of Kansas investigated the potential benefits

of smiling by looking at how different types of smiling,and

the awareness of smiling affects an individuals’ ability to

recover from episodes of stress.

“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 Kraft.

“We wanted to examine whether these adages had scientific

merit,whether smiling could have real health-relevant

benefits,” Kraft said.

Kraft and Pressman’s work 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 researchers recruited 169 participants from a Midwestern university. The study involved two phases: training and testing.

During the training phase,participants were divided into

three groups,and each group was trained to hold a different

facial expression.

The researchers measured participants’ heart rates and

self-reported stress levels throughout the testing phase.

The results of the study suggest that smiling may actually

influence our physical state.

Compared to participants who held neutral facial expressions,participants who were instructed to smile,and in particular those with Duchenne smiles,had lower heart rate levels after recovery from the stressful activities.

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 study is published in the journal ‘Psychological Science’.