Smile, It's Science!

Smile. How do you feel? The common misconception with smiling is that it is only to signal when someone is feeling happy. However, smiling also releases specific hormones that trigger happiness among other things. If you think about it, smiling triggers a positive cycle. When your brain is in a good mood, it tells your muscles to smile. In turn, smiling releases hormones that tell the brain that you feel good. This cycle can go on and on.

Two of the main hormones that are released as a result of smiling are dopamine and serotonin. These hormones are neurotransmitters: chemicals that carry messages throughout the nervous system, which includes to and from the brain. Dopamine is associated with desire and can affect mood, sleep, learning, movement, alertness, and blood flow. Its messages control body movement, prompting you to partake in pleasurable activities such as eating delicious food. Serotonin, on the other hand, primarily assists in digestion but also controls the sleep cycle, mood, metabolism, concentration, body temperature, and blood clotting. Dopamine and serotonin are known as the “happy hormones” since they play a large part in mood and emotions. In terms of mood and emotion, dopamine is linked to happiness, and low levels indicate depression. Serotonin is connected to reduced stress, and low levels also indicate depression and even aggression.

Smiling is associated with countless benefits even though most could be from correlation rather than causation. Causation is when two things are linked and one seems to have a direct effect on the other. Correlation, in contrast, is when two things are linked but there is no proof that one affects the other. In other words, a correlation is often a coincidence. Smiling has been linked with reduced stress, a lower heart rate, and lower blood pressure, which are all beneficial to a person’s health. One study looked at yearbook pictures and noted which women had better smiles. It turned out that those women had happier lives: fewer challenges and better marriages.

Fun Fact: Scientists discovered that happiness can promote the immune system whereas depression can reduce its function.

If you remember the previous article, longevity is the expectation to live a long life. Longevity is another benefit that has been demonstrated throughout several studies. One of these studies involved baseball cards. The players on the cards who smiled more lived seven years longer than the players who didn’t smile at all.

Although it is not as powerful as a genuine smile, even a fake smile can trick your brain into thinking you are happy. A study found that on average, people who had botox injections were happier than those who didn’t have the injections. Botox injections keep a person’s face in a smile, so they cannot frown.

It is surprisingly easy to distinguish a genuine smile from a fake smile, or a “social” smile as scientists call it. When you smile, the muscles that control the corners of your mouth activate; these are your zygomaticus major muscles. If these are the only muscles that are triggered, then it is a polite social smile. You also have muscles that enclose your eye socket, and they are called obicularis occuli. If these muscles activate along with your zygomaticus major, it is a genuine smile.

Although most people do not consciously look for these differences, the brain automatically recognizes which smile it is by observing the facial geometry. It also thinks about what it is and which smile seems logically more appropriate. Lastly, the person generally copies the other person’s smile to decide if it is genuine or not. This is actually a crucial step in determining what kind of smile you are seeing. An experiment was conducted where the subjects placed pencils between their lips and were asked to identify whether or not a smile was genuine. Due to the inability to reciprocate the action, it was more difficult to determine what type of smile it was.

The sense to mimic someone else’s smile is also because humans have “mirror neurons” that allow a person to imitate the other person’s behavior; these neurons are connected to a person’s ability to empathize with another. Empathy is critical in forging connections with other people.

Fun Fact: Mirror neurons also work in the mirror with yourself as well. Try it now!

One smile can brighten a person’s entire day. You might not know it, but maybe the next person you smile at really needed to see your smile. Especially in the tougher times, it’s good to remind others that there is still hope. Smiling is one of those little things that many people don’t think about but encounter every day. From time to time, take a moment to appreciate the little things in life. I hope you learned something new today. Watch out for the next post! Keep smiling!