Demystifying your science befuddlements
By Crystal Gwizdala
Q: Does smiling make us happy?
A: Well, happiness is a big topic. For our discussion, I’ll refer to happiness as the emotion, rather than the state of mind. So yes, it does have an impact on how joyful or happy you feel.
Q: Can you fake your mood or trick your body into a better mood just by smiling?
A: Yes you can. I’ve seen research that suggests smiling releases dopamine and serotonin, although I haven’t really seen hard evidence for that. According to Medical News Today, dopamine naturally elevates your mood whereas serotonin is associated with reducing your stress. So both of those neurotransmitters have an impact on your mood. If smiling really does cause you to release these neurotransmitters, that would be the biological explanation for why smiling makes you feel happy.
Other than that, there have been many studies done on this where psychologists do these tests to see if smiling actually makes people feel better. So they’ll present a stressful situation to people, and they will tell people to smile in response to it. In some studies, they use chopsticks to manipulate their face so it’s a smile.
Q: Even mechanically, forcing your muscles to smile.
A: Yes. And besides, just like a normal smile, which is at the mouth, they also manipulated it so it reached their eyes – which is called a Duchenne smile, or a genuine smile. (Read more in The Atlantic.) They had the most positive response, or spike [in mood]. Whereas, the smile just in the mouth was still positive, just not as positive as the one that reached the eyes.
Q: Is smiling as effective as laughter?
A: Hm, I don’t know. I would think that laughter would be stronger.
Q: I’ve heard of laughter yoga.
A: I’ve seen these videos – they’re hilarious.
Q: As intended.
A: So when you laugh, your body releases endorphins; rather, neurotransmitters similar to a smile. I think laughing creates a feedback loop, so you’re able to laugh for a whole minute and keep that feeling going, where with smiling it’d be kind of awkward to hold a smile for that long. Also, you’re engaging more muscles.
…
Is that crystal clear? Let us know! If you’d like to submit a question, send an email to deltacollegiate@gmail.com or tweet us @DeltaCollegiate with the hashtag, #CrystalClear.
