The act of smiling makes you happy. Even when you fake it and feel stressed or angry or anxious. It’s as easy as that. In yesterday’s post I told you that smiling causes a shift in your body AND in how you feel. Let’s discuss other aspects of the mind-body connection.
Worldly renowned psychologist Paul Ekman, is the researcher and author best known for furthering our understanding of nonverbal behaviour, encompassing facial expressions and gestures.
In his early research he demonstrated that
a) thinking about an event to generate a feeling as well as
b) only producing a facial expression of that feeling has an impact on your body.
When participants of the study ‘Voluntary facial action generates emotion-specific autonomic nervous system activity’ put a smile on their faces their heart rate fell and their skin temperature increased.
A fearful expression had the opposite effect.
Practice smiling!
The simple act of smiling fosters reactions in your body and in your mind that will enhance your well-being dramatically if you PRACTICE and EXPERIENCE it regularly and let it become a habitual way of acting and reacting!
Small changes can have a huge impact to our lives. That’s why I invite you to actually experience the effect of the above with your own mindbody.
YOUR TURN NOW
- Give yourself a lapse of time: a day or two, a week if you’re bold
- Make a ‘contract’ with yourself: whenever you’ll feel X (add your feeling, e.g. frustrated or upset or overwhelmed), I’ll take a deep breath and start to smile (mouth and eyes!)
- I’ll hold this smile at least 20 seconds or more – fake it til you make it.
- Feel how your body relaxes
- Choose happiness!
This post is part of a 30 day blogging challenge.
I’d love to know how it went when you tried this out. Thanks for leaving a comment below.
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