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Neuroscientist Shane O’Mara believes that plenty of regular walking unlocks the cognitive powers of the brain like nothing else. He explains why you should exchange yo...

12/12/2019

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04/12/2019

PUT A SMILE YOUR FACE AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS
In a 2002 study performed in Sweden confirmed that people respond in kind to the facial expressions they encounter. Test subjects were shown photos of faces, some smiling and some frowning. Subjects were required to respond with their own smiles, frowns, and non-expressions as directed by those conducting the experiment. Researchers noted that while subjects had an easy time frowning at what appeared to be frowning at them and smiling in reply to the photographed smiles, those being tested encountered difficulties when prompted to respond in an opposite manner to the expressions displayed in the images. Subjects instinctively wanted to reflect what they’d been exposed to, answering smile for smile and frown for frown, and could not easily overcome this urge even when they were quite consciously trying to.
Because humans are wired instinctively to respond with like for like, facial expressions are contagious. so putting a smile on your face does work to benefit society in that smiling people cause those around them to smile.
Yet smiling is not just good for the community, it is also beneficial to the person doing the grinning. Facial expressions do not merely signal what one feels but actually contribute to that feeling. If we smile even when we don’t feel like it, our mood will elevate despite ourselves. Likewise, faking a frown brings on a sense of not much liking the world that day.
This subject been studied and measured by numerous researchers. It has been demonstrated that subjects who produced facial expressions of fear, anger, sadness, or disgust manifested the same bodily reactions that experiencing bouts of the actual emotions would have provoked (e.g., increased heart rate, elevated skin temperature, and sweating). Likewise, in studies of test subjects who were required to smile compared to those who weren’t, those instructed to force smiles onto their faces reported feeling happier than their non-grinning counterparts did. In both cases although test subjects knew they were acting, their bodies didn’t, and so their bodies responded accordingly. At least in this chapter of the saga of the mind against the body, the body won.