The Smile Experiment: We Smiled Whenever We Didn’t Want to & Here’s What Happened
Today we're talking about happiness.
Happiness is something that seems elusive, sometimes like a treadmill that you're always on and yet can't get to, can't get off of, with happiness just always around the corner, something you have to keep working towards.
So Inner Calling creative producer Carlisle Hickey and I did something called The Smile Experiment this past week because we wanted to see if happiness actually is available to us in any moment. And there's been research some that shows that when you smile, the physical act of smiling can actually just lead to greater feelings of happiness and joy. So we just wanted to see, is that true for ourselves?
So anytime we felt sad or angry or anxious or depressed, we would basically just force ourselves to smile in that moment and see if it changed our response to what was going on.
And it's related to something in dialectical behavior therapy called opposite action, a coping skill, where you simply do the opposite of what your emotional urge is telling you to do.
Victoria’s Experience:
I had an interesting week.
It started with my birthday, which is usually a day that it’s very easy to smile, and I was enjoying my day. It was a beautiful day, and the sun was out, and I, for some reason, decided to go to the office and pick up some files. And so I got this stack of files. I'm carrying it down this three story building. They're stacked from my hips to my nose. And I'm like, It's fine, oh no. And I walk into my car and I'm like, This is great. I'm gonna go celebrate my birthday with my mom now and then I fall on the concrete of the parking lot and I'm in pain, and I look down and I see my ankle in blood. It's not good.
And my usual response would be just like, this sucks. It's my birthday. Man. Why does it have to happen today? And so as I was laying on the parking lot concrete, I realized I'm doing the smile experiment this week. I better smile, so I force myself to smile in that moment. I mean, like, five seconds after I fall, I'm laying there smiling at myself.
And at first I'm like, there's literally, like a pain in my head. Like I can feel a pain in my head, like, it's like, literally the neurotransmitters in my brain that are like, trying to be unhappy and and then the smile neurotransmitters being like, no, that's not happening today. It's like a thing going on between them, but the smile wins out, and I actually felt some joy, because I just saw the absurdity of it, like, there I am laying in the parking lot, smiling to myself.
Another thing that happened this week is something I've struggled with for many, many years. It's when my dad nags me. So he'll, you know, he'll just say things like, you need to do this, you need to do that. Make sure you do blah, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, I'm in my 30s now, and he's nagging me. I usually get kind of irritated.
So what happened was, this past week, he was nagging me, and I was like, well, I'm doing a smile experiment. I better smile, so I started smiling. And the funniest thing happened, he stopped nagging me. Oh my gosh. I've been trying to get him to stop nagging me for years, but apparently smiling is what does the trick. Because he felt like I was listening to him and taking his advice. He was so happy. And the funny thing, he just stopped nagging me as much.
And the other crazy thing that happened this week was I saw this massage therapist who I really love. Her name is Hannah, and for weeks she's been telling me, Victoria, you have so much tension in your neck. You're like, 99th percentile of like tension in your neck. It's like a stiff rod in your neck. Like, this isn't normal. Please do something about it. And for weeks, I've been months, I've been struggling with this. And over this past week, over doing a smile experiment, she she was like, wow, you have a lot less tension in your body, in your neck. And I did not do anything different this past week. I simply made a conscious effort to smile more.
I'd rate it 10 out of 10.
I really love this. It really helped me. I wouldn't recommend it to replace medication or anything like that. I would just recommend it to add in, in addition to whatever you're doing right now, just to help you get in touch with the happiness and joy that you have within yourself that's there.
I realized that happiness really is available in any moment, and there's so many different coping skills and techniques a person can use to be happy, but this was like a very effective hack, I'd say, to very quickly access happiness in the moment, because quickly after I would smile, maybe like five seconds, I would literally just feel happier.
Carlisle’s experience:
I really enjoyed doing this this week.
I was pretty skeptical at the beginning that it would have any big changes in my emotions, my response to things, but honestly, I really enjoyed it. One of the things that I noticed in particular there was one night I was hanging out with a group of friends, and I really loved these people, but occasionally we'll have conversations about food and losing weight and just appearance and everything, and it just makes me feel a little ashamed and judged and self conscious.
So on my drive home, I was kind of just spiraling through all these thoughts, just feeling self consciousness. And it came to me like, oh my gosh, okay, we're doing the smile experiment. Let me try this. Let me pull myself out of this, or let me see if it works. And I did it. And those first few seconds where you're just like sitting there feeling horrible but forcing yourself to smile, like your body is rejecting it, but after, I would say about five seconds, I felt my emotions shift, and I felt some distance between those negative emotions. And honestly, it was just like a little reset button where it felt like, okay, hey, this is just a moment. This is just a feeling like, let's take some distance. And it made me feel like, not to take the situation too seriously, not to take myself too seriously.
So I would say it definitely worked. And I was surprised, but just that quick little reset definitely helped me, like, pull myself out of that spiral.
Another thing I tried to do this week, just as kind of a side part of the project, is smiling at people, just when I'm out and walking in the park or out in the world, just trying to make an effort to make eye contact and smile at people and just acknowledge them. And it was actually really cool. I mean, not that it was, like, completely world changing, but I did definitely feel like a sense of connection and camaraderie with just that moment of acknowledgement between two people and sharing a little bit of joy. It definitely made me walk away feeling more of a sense of community with the people at the park or just anywhere I was.
I would give this experiment a 9.5 out of 10, and only because I want to reserve that, like 10 out of 10 for a future experiment.
I'm sure we're gonna do that's gonna be amazing. But I honestly, I really enjoyed this experiment, and it was great, and I would absolutely recommend it.
I think the biggest takeaway I got from it was like this little reset button that we have. It allowed me to kind of open my eyes in a moment where I'm feeling just really negative and feeling really bad. Just let me tell myself, like, hey, let's not take this too seriously. Don't take yourself too seriously. Don't take life too seriously. Like, it's okay, we're going to figure it out. And so that, like, just brief few moments of peace and distance and calmness that the like forcing myself to smile gave me. It was incredibly helpful, and I'm definitely going to be using it in the future.
This week I want you to try your own smile experiment.
Go out and whenever you feel angry, upset or anxious, smile instead, and just know that in the moment, you're probably not going to want to maybe, but just do it and see what happens and see how it feels and how you like this technique. It'll be an experiment.