Humor

Every had someone tell you "turn that frown upside down!" Obnoxious advice? Maybe. But they might just be onto something. By now, most of us have heard of forced smiling — or the act of turning your mouth up at the ends into something like a smile — and how it can potentially turn your mood around by tricking your body into, essentially, think it's happy.

Research has shown that smiling more, even when you have to fake it, can boost your mood, lower stress, bring your heart rate down, and give your immune system a boost. But did you know some people say the same is actually true of laughing?

Reseachers wanted to test the positive effects of laughter, so they found some of the most stressed out people they could manage: Students.

Researchers from Istanbul University-Cerrahpaşa chose nursing students who exhibited high levels of stress due to their coursework and put them through a rigorous laughing protocol. Nursing is notoriously one of the most stressful college majors.

First, students were surveyed on measures like their self-reported stress levels, the academic self-efficacy or confidence, and overall well-being.

For the test group, a group of the students took a 40-minute laughter yoga courses once per week, for five weeks.

Laughter yoga is a unique sort of yoga class that has four components, according to the study. First, a playful clapping warm-up. Next, deep breathing. Third, silly games, and fourth, laughter exercises. The idea is to force yourself to laugh — even literally saying the words ha-ha over and over — until eventually you start genuinely laughing and smiling.

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Compared to the control group, the intervention group saw significant improvements in overall well-being and perceived stress levels after five weeks of laughing yoga.

The findings from the new study line up with previous research about laughing yoga and forced laughter. Previous studies have shown laughing yoga, specifically, to be beneficial for cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy as well as the elderly. This aligns with common sense, too. You can only say hahaha so many times before you start genuinely cracking up, and you're bound to feel fantastic afterwards.

So far, the science says that regular forced laughter is a fun, cost-effective, and non-medicinal way of lowering stress and increasing well-being. Plus, if you try out laughing yoga, you get to tell people that you're going to yoga class when you're really just goofing around! Win-win.

Are there potential downsides to forced laughter or smiling?

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Forced laughter, especially in social settings, is a heavily studied phenomenon. Did you know there are four types of forced laughter, depending on the reason and motivation behind each one? Studies show that forcing a laugh can be a mixed bag.

Intimacy maintenance laughter, or "a forced laugh used to brighten the atmosphere in a situation or to maintain or improve one’s level of intimacy with another," unsurprisingly has positive ramifications on our mental health. But expression control laughter, where we fake a laugh to hide a negative emotion, can have the opposite effect.

It definitely begs the question — could forcing ourself to laugh or smile when we're stressed actually be harmful? So far, there's not much data to suggest a downside to something as gentle and fun as laughing yoga, but there is research that shows when sad people try to smile more it makes them feel worse in certain circumstances.

And some people, whether it's supported by data or not, just can't get on board with trying to "trick" our minds and bodies into feeling a certain way. It's definitely not a concept that would sit well with truly dedicated yogis.

Finally, when it comes to the stories we've all heard about forced smiling, it turns out the positive effects are probably a lot smaller than we've been led to believe anyway. Even the recent study on laughing yoga for stressed out nursing students, while definitely demonstrating an improvement in well-being, fell short of the massive effect you might expect.

The takeaway? Forcing a laugh or a smile can be a good pick me up, and a solid everyday habit, like meditating. But it's best viewed as a short term solution and probably isn't going to cure your stress and anxiety all on its own.

The ideal would be if you can find a way to genuinely smile and laugh every day. Talk to a friend, watch a funny movie, joke around with the kids.

But if you have to start with a forced smile or laugh, it's better than nothing. Stress levels have been rising in America for years, so at this point, we'll take anything we can get!