If you smile even when you don’t feel like it, you can fool your mind into thinking you are happy and your body will follow. So, share a smile, even if it’s just with yourself.

I regularly attend a PD focused movement and voice class with my husband. Our instructor is an amazingly upbeat young woman who tells us that the muscles we use in our face to smile send messages to our brain. If we make the effort to smile even when we don’t want to, we create messages that align with a sensation of happiness and we feel better. When she first mentioned this, I have to admit that it sounded too easy to me.

A few days later, I was having one of those days where nothing goes right and feeling really frustrated and down. I remembered her words and decided to give it try. Since I was doing random chores in the house, what did I have to lose? I took a deep breath and forced myself to smile. I consciously made the effort while I worked. Within about 20 minutes, I realized that I was smiling for no reason and my mood had indeed gotten brighter. It may sound simplistic, but if it works, I’m all for it!

One thought on “If you smile even when you don’t feel like it, you can fool your mind into thinking you are happy and your body will follow. So, share a smile, even if it’s just with yourself.”

  1. So we are playing the 3 things I am thankful for every morning again. Matt and I did this years ago when he was on meds for depression, and it made a huge difference. I have more energy, am less impacted by the stuff that makes me crazy, and I am better at doing the things that need to be done(and there are a lot of those). I currently am texting them to my kids, but am thinking I might expand my group to include facebook or my blog. I will build in smiling to my morning routine as well.

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