Just grin and bear it!
At some point, we have all probably heard or thought something like this when
facing a tough situation. But is there any truth to this piece of advice?
Feeling good usually makes us smile, but does it work the other way around? Can
smiling actually make us feel better? In a study forthcoming in Psychological
Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, psychological
scientists Tara Kraft and Sarah Pressman of the University of Kansas
investigate the potential benefits of smiling by looking at how different types
of smiling, and the awareness of smiling, affects individuals’ ability to
recover from episodes of stress.
“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,” says Kraft. “We wanted to examine whether these
adages had scientific merit; whether smiling could have real health-relevant
benefits.”
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