Does smiling make you happy?

I'm pretty smiling though. You're fairly smiling unless I'm actively piste off about something, and then I'll probably be smiling. Okay, but you just seen me up sat too. That happens. I've never seen you upset. Hey, you just smiled just now? Maybe smile? Was that a fake smiler? Was that a what's called a duchese smile? That was Duquese baby all the way? So we're gonna go with Duke, but it could be Duken. Uh, there's two ends, so I think it may be Duken zu Ken smile. It's French. It's

named after a frenchie, Giom Duken. He's a neurologist, one of the early ones where it was basically like, oh, there's a brain there and it's in control of everything, so let's test all sorts of crazy stuff and we'll begin the field of neuroscience right in in eighteen sixty two, sort of oddly at the time, I think there was

so much more interesting things going on to study. He figured out that the you know, there's a natural smile, and there are facial muscles involved in that that are involved with the brain, and so he said, I will name it after myself. Well, he was kind of an interesting guy and that he was, from what I understand, somewhat obsessed with the idea that muscles were connected to the soul. Okay, which is weird because that kind of provides the basis of later research into facial expressions and

specifically miling. But he was kind of onto something in a weird, roundabout way. But the the way that he isolated he was famous for isolating the facial expressions involved in the smile. But he did it by taking emotion out of the equation. I He did that by shocking the facial muscles of patients in his hospital. That's how he that's how he identified what muscles were involved in a smile and a genuine smile yeah um and uh yeah. He he was known to um basically shock people's faces.

There's a picture of him with a patient these two um, these two basically rods that you would use to shock somebody and the person is going like, uh, I'm not doing this on my own. Yeah wow, Well let's do can okay, And that was some pretty shocking experiment station. So you can right comes up with a smile and it's a that's the genuine smile, but there's also a fixed mile and the do ken smile. Also, if you're interested, Chuck Um, I didn't send it to you, but there's

this thing called spot the Fake Smile on BBC. It's like twenty different pictures and you pick whether it's fake or genuine. Apparently people stink at it. I didn't have time to really do it, so I don't know what my score was. I did like four of them, but they were kind of hard. But the key is when you're looking for a genuine smile, the eyes are involved. You get the crow's feet right, um, you you're you're you get kind of squinty. That's a real smile. Fake

smiles just the mouth. Yeah. I have jokingly doctored up photos of Emily and myself, um, like smudging away wrinkles and stuff and crow's feet, just kidding around. I wouldn't you know me and pictures I don't care, no you, that's that's my bag. Um. But it Emily always says, it looks like we're like smiling without her eyes. It looks like, you know, that fake smile, like you've been botoxed, which will come up later exactly in this discussion. So

um fax smiling, real smiling. Obviously, the one you want to go for is the genuine smile because you you can feel it. It's like kind of starts in your gut and comes out of your heart right. Um, Like when you see a guy fall down on the street and you just like you feel that sense of happiness,

you know, Yeah, you just start whistling. Maybe as you walk along your way, you're like, sorry, mr, need need a hand, Yeah, And then you happen to have your your prosthetic hand in there and you let him pull it right off, and you're like, WHOA did I ever tell you about the guy in college that fell off his bike and his books splayed out all over the street in front of like hundreds of students on campus and he, uh, he just put his arm on his

chin and started throwing through one of the boats, laying down. Its awesome. It was one of the better reactions I've ever seen. That is awesome. Wow. I think that would have emotionally crippled me. I was so self conscious in college. I would not have like that either. I would have been like, well, that's it for me in college, transferring to attent exactly in my dad's back, y'all. Um, So chuck, we've got the fake the difference between the fake smile and the real smile. And I don't know if you

noticed this. You're a little older than me, but in the seventies and eighties, were you aware that there was a lot of like, this is the heyday of smile research. I didn't know that. It sort of makes sense just because that's from the whole happy face boom um. You know once Forrest Gump invented that with the face T shirt. Yeah, that was a big deal. Smiling was a big deal. Okay, So well, people don't put funding into figuring out, what,

you know, just evaluating smiles. And one of the things they found that was kind of surprising, is that that fake smile we were talking about, the one that just has to do with the mouth and it's not necessarily connected to any emotion. The fake smile um actually can lead to more positive feelings or a better sense of well being, at least in these studies that came out of the seventies and eighties. Yeah, there's a lot of studies,

as it turns out. But that's kind of weird because you know, the way we've always thought of smiling is your smile as the result of positive feelings. You can generate positive feelings from smiling. Right, But there there are a bunch of studies, as you say that, and they found this body of researches is surprisingly consistent, right, Yeah, and the in the late eighties, Uh, this psychologist named Robert jan I just took it as a johnic. I think there's no Balkan I know, but they add like

um invisible. It's not silent, it's an invisible vowel a Right. This doctor from the Falklands where Balkans Balkans from the Falklands, from the Falkland Islands published a study This smile stuff is making us so silly. Uh. He had subjects repeat vowel sounds, obviously, which would mimic either a smile or

a frown. So if you're going to mimic a smile, you would do like an E R and uh frown, you would do a long you you and even your brow furrows, even though I think you're exaggerating, but that's sort of what happens naturally to your face, right. But what he was making them use these vowel sounds because to find out whether it has an effect positive or

negative or none, you have to take emotions out. You want them to be emotionally neutral to begin with, which is kind of hard because I would be sitting there kind of giggling anyway at the stillness of the whole thing. But it's similar to like Duke Ken using the shocks. You're trying to keep emotion out of it to generate I don't think it's something happy, just go right. Uh. And they in fact reported the subjects reported feeling better with the long sound the sound, and feeling bad with

the you. So there you have it in case closed, right. Uh. Yeah, I guess I do kind of You know, I have problems with studies like that anytime it's a they base everything on a measure of reported well being subjective well being. Sure, like, we've talked a lot about happiness, right, We've got an audiobook just sitting there that we've never released on happiness

just gathering dust. Um, so we know a lot about this, and we know that there are a lot of studies out there that are just kind of like, you know, yes, and if it were just this one, I would I would be poop pooing it. But there's a bunch of other ones that have kind of followed similar methodology have

come up with similar results. Well, rather than making vowel sounds, there was another study that had people hold a pencil and they're in their mouths to make it makes the smile or sticking out, which makes a pout out makes a pout always remember that there's your mnemonic device. Uh, And they found the same thing that people who were who had the pens sticking out of their mouths were unhappier afterward, and people who are holding the pencil or

pen lengthwise, we're happier afterwards. That's right, again self reported, But this is kind of strange that people are still coming in the same conclusion yes, and yet another. Josh had um three groups of people. One was shown pictures of facial expressions, another group made those facial expressions, and yet another made those expressions while looking at themselves in

a mirror. And then they were asked questions at pinpointed their emotional state before and after, and overwhelmingly they scored happier after smiling, and the mirror subjects saw an even more pronounced change in mood than those who didn't see the mirror. So it went. The people who just looked at pictures of people smiling didn't have much of a change. He didn't have any at all. Mild, they didn't have

any at all. What it says people who smiled but didn't look at pictures and didn't look into a mirror had some change. But the people who smiled but they looked into a mirror head like through the roof change. That's the jackpot. That's when you're looking, You're like, hey, look at you got like that guy he's smiling. I'm smiling right back, and it's just the love fest. That's the finny. I'm always disappointed when I look in the mirror, even when I'm smiling. Yeah, yeah, but I shouldn't even

look in mirrors that much anymore. I think we've talked about that. Yeah, we and probably in the How Mirrors Work episode. I'm gonna suspect that one. Although that little trick mirror. We were on that photo film shoot not too long ago and they had one of those mirrors. It makes you all squatty. Fun house mirror. I think you and I, like five year old stood in front of that thing for thirty minutes laughing. Yeah. The funniest part with you and I are like going up and down,

you know, like we're playing in the mirror. But then the crew was just walking by, and they looked really deliberate, you know, but they like little little person there carrying that light it was but with big feet. That was pretty cool. Fun house mirrors the best. Um. But this is this kind of raises a big question like why would looking in the mirror um increase your happiness more than just smiling? Right? Um, unless you love yourself? I

I think you know, I mean that's an explanation. Sure, um, but you're probably gonna lose your funding if that's what you come you come up with instead, these researchers who conducted this particular it um suggested that there's a self conscious aspect to um smiling right where if you so in the group that just smiled there, if there are people who were introspective, who thought about their feelings, who were aware of their changes and emotion, those people would

have had the most UM boost in happiness from just smiling. But looking in the mirror. You take all those people who aren't necessarily introspective and force them to confront their change and emotion by by making them watch themselves smile, and so that that it's that almost UM is a supplement to self consciousness. If you're not self conscious. This simulates that that phenomenon. You see what I'm saying, Like you, you don't have to just sit there and think, oh,

I'm smiling right now, you can see it. You're taking it in. So they think that there's a there's a psychological aspect to it. But this guy, Roberts Johnic, that's what we concluded his name is. He suggests that there's a physiological basis for it, right, So there's maybe both. So the only thing we're missing now is what Duken thought, which is that they're all facial muscles are connected to the soul. That's right, and then everybody will just be

happy and covered. That's right. And interestingly, Josh, this goes back to one Chucky Darwin. Yeah, he actually thought of the stuff back in the nineteenth century that facial expressions don't only reflect emotions, but could be the cause of them. And then he got busy with you, now, the whole

other stuff that he did. That's that little matter if the galappa goes and uh, it kind of sat on the backburner until the eighties when these new dudes started studying it, and uh, doctors aghn I looked at the research a little further and basically says, you know what, I've got a physiological reason. I've got a hypothesis here

why a smile might trigger happiness. And it has to do with the temperature of your body parts change when there's activity there in the muscles, and there's chemical activities that happen in that area as well because of that temperature change, just like in smiling. Right. Well, he was saying, there was other research, I don't think anything to do with smiling that that found that changes in temperature in the brain led to biochemical changes, right, So like maybe

more of an endorphin was released when it's cooler. Or basically, what they found was when you can connect emotions to temperature, A warmer brain is an anxious brain. Yes, maybe it has to do with fight or flight. Sure, Um, a cooler brain comparatively is a happier brain. And Zgohnic said, Okay, well, how does this relate to smiling and what did he find? The answer is in the carotid artery, that's right, not the cartoid artery is some people mistaken, they say, uh,

and that is the pipe that livers. Most of the blood of the brain flows through an opening called the cavernous sinus, and that's got a lot of facial veins there. So when you smile, Uh, those muscles tighten, those veins are constricted. It's gonna cut down the blood flow going through the car Toyd carotid artery, and uh, you're gonna get a cooler brain. So it's gonna gonna make you happier.

But he said, also conversely, when you frown, it actually relieves even more pressure on that corodid artery, so more blood flows. More blood flow equals more higher temperature in the brain and I mean, we're talking about such a minute change. But it certainly makes sense that if if our brains are sensitive, if the chemical processes in our brains are sensitive to very minute changes, which I imagine they would be, then this explanation is perfectly rational reasonable. Uh,

it's not supported in any way. There's like, none of these studies show definitively that yes, um, smiling makes you happier, but they suggest that the results suggest that there's a pretty good chance that people become happier just from smiling, even even faking it. Yes, but you found a study that refuted that. Josh, Well, let's talk about the botox first. Yes,

two more studies with both very interesting. So the botox one, remember when it supports this, we were saying, like with the uh, with the shocks, do Ken's shocks are using the pen all right, You're you're trying to take emotion out of the equation to see if facial expressions can create emotions. With botox is doing the opposite. You're taking the facial expressions out to see how that affects emotions.

And what they found. There's a study from two thousand ten from Barnard College in New York UM that found that people who have botox botalks we should unsure most people know. But it's a it's a toxic proteins, yeah, that they inject into your uh skin and too basically paralyze it so like you don't have that troublesome space between your eyes when you frown, or your your forehead doesn't crinkle up, or your crow's feet don't don't crinkle

up when you smile, and paralyzes the nerves. Yes, and it's sort of creepy looking sometimes especially it's not too too bad, right, but it's it's super popular these days. It is. To have injected into your face is very popular. It is pretty we have finally arrived at the dystopian

future that's been predicted forever. UM. But what they found was that people UM who had botox injected reported UM, they showed him basically like tear jerk or clips from movies or or something like that, like a net Banning is on a couch and she's like crippled or something like that. Yeah, like Sweet Home, Alabama or something. Yeah, exactly like at the end when things turn out right

for everybody, it's UM. And the people who had received botox and actions reported less of an emotional response than people who've been given restling, which is another injection, but it's a filler, it doesn't paralyze anything. So basically the idea it matched their face and the results were that they if you can't produce a facial expression, then your emotional experience is slightly lessened. Yeah, it's muted. So this shows both ways facial expressions are somehow connected to emotion,

to producing emotion. The other study, which I like, talks about fake smiling, like, uh, you know, turn that frown upside down and you won't be so gloomy. Not true. Fake smiling can actually make things worse. So Walmart greeters, when you're being told the smile on your job, that can actually bum you out more. And that's that's the reason.

Can't you just one intuitively, didn't you intuitively know this already that that Porsche mom whose job it is a smile at everybody is probably the one who like wants to punch in the stomach most by the end of the day. Sure, yeah, but it's just interesting because all these other things say like a smile can actually increase your emotion, but it's got to be a real smile. A fake smile has the reverse effect. And they actually did some research on this, Yeah, Michigan State two thousand

eleven study Spartans. It was in the Academy of Management Journal, And basically this professor Um, he's a professor management. He studied a group of bus drivers over two weeks and found that the ones who fake smile the most had more withdrawal and emotional exhaustion and had less hemorrhoids probably um and but so basically that's surface acting fake smiling.

But he did find also that deep acting, which is where you're like trying to cultivate a more positive outlook inside yourself, like thinking of a really pleasant memory that genuinely makes you happy, right you, you're doing that can lead to actual more positive feelings, better performance at work. Because again it's a management study, so that's what they care about. But do you you actually do um experience

more better feelings. There's a positive effect rather than an emotional withdrawal or waste that comes from fake smiling, Which makes sense to me because I mean think about it, like facial expressions are we've always assumed designed for another person. This is how I'm feeling right now, respond accordingly, If you are misleading everybody, you're you're going to at the very least feel like you're not connected anyone because there's no one who's understanding you. Yeah, they said it causes

feelings of in in authenticity, which makes sense. And they also found that women, who are typically viewed as more emotional than men, got in worse moods with the fake smiling and reacted even more positively when they were deep acting and really able to able to conjure up those pleasant feelings puppies. Yeah, so men are just apes. Well.

Another study two thousand five minut University study found that UM women are likelier to smile, what whether they feel like smiling or not, in almost all social situations, compared to man. So there that explains why women are often emotionally exhausted. Yeah, my mom was much more inclined to put on a happy face around other people than my dad was. My dad would literally just like go off by himself and sulk in front of everybody and just

be like here's me. But still in two thousand and eleven, the point that we're at is um putting pens in people's mouths and telling him to make e sounds in our smile research. This is where we are. But at the very least the findings are they're interesting and man, it has been forever since we've done like a study fest. Yeah, this feels like two thousand and eight, two thousand nine, crazy. Yeah, you know we've been doing this for more than three years now. Really that means uh Sarah our fan that

is she's like ninety, she wrote recently. I think she's fourteen? Now? Is she fourteen? Now? Yes, she's she's on the Facebook page now. No, I haven't keeps the darn button. Well that's great. Well that's it for smiling. I'm done smiling for the day. Yeah, I'm not. I don't feel like being emotionally withdrawn and exhausted. Although our next podcast that we're recording is pretty fun, it is, but that'll be a genuine smile. Yes, okay, So Chuck, you got anything?

Uh no, Just to plug the fact that we're on the radio now, you can listen to us on Friday nights from seven eight if you're in the New York area New Jersey area on WFMU ninety one point one. As a matter of fact, we cover the whole Hudson Valley like a wet blanket that's been left out in the street for a couple of days. Hudson Valley. You can find us it in dy point one Friday's from seven eight and big thanks to Ken Friedman. Yeah, huge thanks. Ken Friedman is like he should wear a cape. Yeah

he might, he probably does. But I Ken is a w FM you and he's like everyone we've talked to in public radio, because we've talked to other folks, has said, boy, Ken is like one of these stand up guys. So so thanks Ken, And if you're listening to this right now on WFMU, we'll bet you appreciate Ken yourself. Yeah they um, okay, So what do you want to do? Listener?

Mail now? Oh, if you want to know more about smiling and happiness, type happy in to the search bar at our beloved venerable website How Stuff Works dot com, and it's gonna bring up a ton of stuff. There was so much happiness stuff that we wrote like last year, what people love studying emotion? Yeah, yes they do. That's psychologists that that's just that's their thing. It certainly is let's make people cry and then ask him about it. Let's make people to shock people in the face. We

got to get that happiness audiobook released. Is it still relevant? Sure it is, okay, it was ever greenest timeless classic. Anyway, I said how stuff works in handy search bar. So listener mail, should we go with the underground railroad or um fear orgasms? I think fear orgaism. I got permission to read this, by the way, as I do all of them. Hi, guys, love the podcast. Thanks for making me learn and laugh. I swear the following story is true,

bizarre but true. So I'm listening to the Fear podcast at the gym today, and you gave an example of men asking women out after experiencing fear because they feel invisible or sexual. And Josh said something like, if you've ever had a strange reaction to fear, let us know invincible invisible. I think she made invincible maybe. So last month I had a truly bizarre experience related to fear.

My boss was out of town. You put me in charge of a webinar he had planned to do, and I've moderated them before, but this was the first time I had to make sure all the mechanics worked. Correctly. About fifty people were expected to join. I'd practiced thoroughly, going through it a few times to make sure I had it down. When the day came to do the webinar, I loaded it up two hours beforehand to make sure it was already and it did not work correctly. I

read through my notes and tried again. I could not get the slides up and started to panic. I can't get the phone lines to work. All of a sudden, I try again and again, and I am panicking. Now I call the client to let them know my difficulties. At this point, I am really panicked. It's been two hours. Folks sending me text while they can't connect sending emails. I like the build up here. It's just like especially coming.

Two phone lines went down, no way to reach the software support line, and fifty people waiting for me to connect them to the webinar that is supposed to start right now. I'm shaking with anxiety. And guess what my body does. I have an intense orgasm, and then another one. She doubled down. Well, I'm thinking my body was trying to get rid of extra energy so I could focus, which kind of makes sense. Maybe or it's just like enough of this, right, let's party. Who knows? It was

so unexpected that I almost started laughing. And no, I have not told many people about this. I'm not sure how you can share it if you find it of interest, but please only use my first name. And Julie I wrote her back and said, yeah, I really would like to read this, and by the way, good for you, and she said, yeah, right now, she like goes into a bear dens and she hang glides and does all sorts of crazy stuff. All that exactly crazy, Julie beckon with by the way, I just made up that last name.

And literally she didn't send her last name. Man, So for all those years that you know, I was stumbling around in the dark not knowing what the heck was going on, I should have just like none at a webinar. Okay, so I don't even know what to call for now. Um, let's see if you have ever encountered a bear, let us know. Sorry, yeah, we don't get too many outdoors and emails these days. How about that you've ever encountered

a bear? Tell us about it? And uh, you can tweet to us right s y s K podcast, which by the way, I should tell you we have a little campaign going that started last night a guy named OMG Chris. That's his Twitter handle OMG C h R I S S S. Right, Okay, he had he asked us to take a vacation because he wanted to catch up, and I tweeted that, like many other people have caught up and succeeded, you know you need to so um I asked all of our fans and followers on Twitter

to let Chris know that he can do it. And there's a hashtag now, it's pound Chris can do it, And all these people send him these words of encouragement and tips and on how to catch up. Some people listen to us at one point five or two times and they say, your your laugh is very funny. Twice the speed. Yeah, We've gotten a lot of people that said they do that. So if you want to encourage Chris,

I've been retweeting a lot of words of encouragement. But you can send him a tweet and c c us on it, and then make sure you use the hashtag pound Chris can do it? All right, R S S S. You know it's just h C H R I S can do it. Good, good thinking. Awesome um. And then also we were on Facebook, Facebook dot com slash stuff You should know and you can send us your bare stories at Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff

from the Future. Join how staffork staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow, brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you