Relationships Fake it ‘til you Make it Although we presume that we act because of the way we feel, in fact we often feel because of the way we act. Studies show that faking a smile makes you feel happier. Try it for couple of seconds. Say the word “cheese”. The research shows that the facial changes involved in smiling have direct effects on certain brain activities associated with happiness. The reverse is also true – try saying the word “You”. One study even showed that people who use Botox are less prone to anger because they can’t make angry faces. On the other side, there are studies that show in some cases, faking it can make you tremendously unhappy. A group of researchers looked at what happened when a group of bus drivers spent two weeks actively faking smiles whenever a new passenger boarded. The result at the end of the two weeks was the drivers felt angry and tended to withdraw more often. When they were asked to only display smiles they actually felt, the drivers overall moods improved and their productivity increased. So the moral of that story is…if you are having a crappy day, try to find reasons to be happy rather than pretending its okay. And if that doesn’t work, go ahead and have a crappy day. We are all entitled to that once in a while. I thought we might take a break to do a mini “fake it til you make it” experiment: Laughter yoga exercise http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Loiqywabao4 (start at 57 seconds – approx 3:30 min)