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31st July 2012
03:56pm BST
Can we ask you a question? When was the last time you smiled? If you can’t remember, then you should probably flash a toothy grin right now. Why? Well new research has revealed that as well as being good for your mood, smiling is also good for your health. Awesome, right?
The Irish Independent reports that walking around with a smile plastered on your face could reduce stress and keep your heart healthy. If that isn’t a great reason to smile, we don’t know what is.
Researchers from the University of Kansas found that smiling is great for getting rid of tension and lowering your heart rate while you’re performing difficult tasks.
“Age old adages, such as ‘grin and bear it’ have suggested smiling to be not only an important nonverbal indicator of happiness but also wishfully promotes smiling as a panacea for life’s stressful events,” said Tara Kraft, one of the researchers.
“We wanted to examine whether these adages had scientific merit; whether smiling could have real health-relevant benefits,” she added.
Tara and her colleague Dr Sarah Pressman recruited 169 volunteers and divided them into three different groups. Each group was then asked to hold a different smiling facial expression. The interesting thing here is that while they were holding their facial expression, the volunteers also had to hold a pair of chopsticks in their mouths.
Why chopsticks you ask? Well, holding the chopsticks with their mouths encouraged them to engage all their smile-muscles.
Half of the chopstick-holding group were asked to smile, while the rest were asked to keep a neutral expression on their face. The volunteers were then asked to work on some stressful multitasking activities.
The participants who were cracking a smile had lower stress and heart rate levels than the volunteers who did not smile.
Speaking about the results of the research, Dr Pressman said that the findings show smiling has a positive impact on the body because it reduces the intensity of the stress we feel. The strange thing is that if we smile as we do stressful things (even if we don’t feel like smiling) we will experience the benefits.
“The next time you are stuck in traffic or are experiencing some other type of stress you might try to hold your face in a smile for a moment,” said Dr Pressman.
“Not only will it help you ‘grin and bear it’ psychologically, but it might actually help your heart health as well,” she added.
Alright ladies, what do you think? Her in Her.ie Headquarters we will be rocking our very best cheesy grins for the rest of the day.
