Why you should smile like you mean it (even if you don’t)

Ever wondered why smiling makes those around you feel good?

Every day for the last 3 months I’ve been taking daily readings of my Heart Rate Variability (HRV), the inter-beat intervals between my heart beat, to learn more about my stress levels. HRV is a well-established measure of the balance in our autonomic nervous system and shows me if my sympathetic “I’m always stressed” fight or flight response is winning out over my parasympathetic rest and relax response.

Using my HRV, I’ve seen my stress levels drop by doing 10 minute live biofeedback training each day. I slow the rate of my breathing down to a personsalised level, at which my heart rate increases in sync with my inhale and decreases as I exhale (around six breathes per minute). I’ve learnt how to optimise this: increasing my HRV and reducing stress (more on this magic to follow).

Normally I do my training listening to music but one day something made me smile and I noticed this caused my HRV to rise… Was this just noise in the signal to be ignored or was the act of smiling and the resulting cheeky and unexpected HRV peak reducing my stress?

So here’s what I learnt.

When you do a proper smile two sets of muscles in your face contract. The first are the zygomatic major muscles, which control the corners of your mouth and result in a social “Mona Lisa”, sort of fake smile. These smiles are for you to command at your will. See my attempt top left!

However, for a truly authentic smile you need the services of your orbicularis oculi, the muscles that go all the way around the eye socket. See the difference above right — it’s like your eyes smile, giving you a perfect set of crow’s feet at the side! And a word of caution, excessive exercising of these little friends gives you wrinkles but don’t let this stop you.

Together these muscles fire signals, via the seventh cranial nerve into the back of the brain stem and into the brain which dutifully responds with the release of a cocktail of feel good hormones: endorphins, neuropeptides, serotonin, and dopamine. These turn the signals around and send them back to the face with instructions to smile. There is a positive feedback loop that just makes you feel relaxed and happy.

And the good news. Thanks to this positive feedback loop, you can fake it, sending manual instructions to the brain to release happy hormones, with a simple smile. If faking it is a real chore, hold a pencil in your mouth and you’ll get the same result but possibly not a good look if you are in a crowded room!

So, smiling helps you relax, lifts your mood, lowers your stress and gives your immune system a boost for a healthier and longer life.

And it’s not just you who benefits. Your smile is contagious, a powerful force of good energy so don’t hold back, keep smiling and the world will be a better place.