Smiling may not always make you happier, and new research suggests that forcing yourself to smile repeatedly could actually make you feel worse. In a University of Florida study involving more than 1,100 participants, researchers discovered that while a single artificial smile can provide a small mood boost, repeatedly faking smiles can erase that benefit or even reverse it.
My mother was telling me to smile since elementary “to release good brain chemicals”. Reading this the thought crossed my mind that growing up was one big customer service job to keep my parents happy.
Yeah but you’re so much prettier when you smile, sweetheart.
Someone finally watched Inside Out
I’ll teach you to be happy!
And yet sitting in my car practicing sinister maniacal Joker laughs is some of the best fun I ever have.
pikachu meme
But it takes seventeen million more muscles to frown than it does to smile! So you should be lazy and smile!
File this under No Shit, Sherlock.
Faking positive emotions really needs to be driven out of cultural expectation.
I thought this was common knowledge by now. I know that similar studies have shown the same effect years ago, and having worked in costumer support by phone (where every communications trainer tells you to put up a smile when talking to clients), it was obvious that this is not a healthy thing to do all day. The smiling loses all it’s meaning, it just becomes a grimace after a while.
Masking always makes me feel worse, so there’s that.
It sucks when the paint comes off with it.
No shit
Guinplaine: yeah, tell me about it…
I know 😭
