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Feeling down? Did you know there’s a simple exercise that can boost your mood in seconds? A Harvard social science PhD has the solution.
Cultivating happiness in your life doesn’t happen in 5 minutes. However, a little help doesn’t hurt. To this end, and for an express good mood, Arthur C. Brooks, Harvard professor and doctor of social sciences, shares a surprisingly simple and quick method that only requires… a simple pencil.
Duchenne’s smile, to initiate joy
What Arthur C. Brooks advocates is what is actually called the Duchenne smile, named after the French neurologist Guillaume Duchenne, who studied facial expressions and identified this smile as associated with genuine joy. All you need to do is place a pencil between your teeth.
“You put a pencil between your teeth – horizontally – and you grip it with your molars, biting down a little bit, not too hard. Don’t hurt your teeth or break them. But (do it) for about 20 seconds,” he explains in the Today media podcast, Making Space.
This smile thus calls upon two muscle groups, the zygomaticus major and the orbicularis oculi, which are located “at the top of the cheeks and at the corner of the eyes”Brooks explains, and so he fakes a genuine, happy smile.
Feeling good in your body, feeling good in your head!
Why does this smile feel good?
In addition to forcing you to smile (which is already a good start to change your perspective), this express technique also allows you to put yourself in a good mood. According to the expert, you only have to look in the mirror in this posture to make sure.You feel better right away,” he says. The effect is also magnified if shared with children, or loved ones when they are feeling grumpy. Doing this simple exercise for 20 seconds will help people feel happier for an hour, says Brooks, who also believes that some research has shown the method’s effectiveness.
Convinced or not, it’s well worth a try!
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