Smile!

You've heard it before, 'When things go bad, just smile', 'A smile makes a big difference', 'It takes less muscles to smile than it does to frown', 'A smile will make you feel better'. But are these sayings actually true, does smiling really make a difference to your mood?

Science tells us that smiling releases neuropeptides (neuro = nervous system), those things that change our mood and help fight off stress.  Additionally, the 'feel good' neurotransmitters called dopamine, endorphins and serotonin are all released when you smile. This helps to relax your body and lower your heart rate and blood pressure.

Endorphins also act as a natural pain reliever and the release of serotonin works as mood lifter. So why wouldn't you want to smile just from what neuroscience tells us?

My interest is in the customer service industry. When a customer consultant smiles, they not only feel better and react better, the customer feels the same way. It's a bit like a yawn, experiments by psychologists reveal that a smile is infectious.

If you smile, others around you will smile back most times and they get the same benefits as you do. Plus, it is hard to get angry at someone who smiles at you. (Don’t smile at someone who is already angry, you will just inflame the situation.)

So how does this work? It takes about the same amount of muscles to smile as it does to frown, in fact a study of anatomy will tell you it takes around eleven muscles to frown and twelves muscles to smile. Sorry to debunk that myth.

The muscles used to smile are so unique that your brain recognises the effort involved in putting a smile on your dial. And because you always smile when you laugh, the muscles become associated with happiness. So, it works in reverse, you smile and your brain ‘thinks’ that you are happy and will release all that fell-good stuff.

There you have it, four hours of research on neurology, psychology and anatomy by me to tell you what you already knew, smiling will make you feel better and will make those around you feel better.

For those people who don't have a reason to smile or can't force a smile on their face, place a pencil sideways across your mouth. This will use the same twelve muscles associated with smiling and your mood will lift. Just don't do it in public. 

Just Flick It

You may have heard it before, but I think that it is worth repeating. One of the fastest ways to change a bad habit is to wear a rubber/elastic band around your wrist and flick it whenever you catch yourself doing something that you want to change.

Habits are formed over time and become so ingrained in our brain that they become 'normal'. The longer that you have had the habit the harder it is to change or eliminate it. 

It can take up to 80 days to change a habit, particularly if it is a life-long one. I don’t know who came up with the theory that it only takes 21 days to change a habit, if it was that easy we wouldn’t have any bad habits would we?

Because it is so hard to change a habit, we often give up before the new habit is formed. Or, we change something related to the new habit far too early and haven’t allowed enough time for the new habit to form because we think that what we are doing isn’t working fast enough.

If you change just one thing associated with the new habit, which is just a pattern of behaviour, it is like starting from day one again. It is important to stick with what you started for as long as you can.

However, I found that using the rubber band technique can speed up the process of change. The downside, there's a bit of pain involved. The amount of pain is up to you…

The idea is to flick the rubber band on the inside of your wrist, this area is very sensitive to pain. The pain caused by flicking the band changes your pattern of behaviour as the pathways formed from the previous repetitive habit is disrupted. Each time you flick the band the brain no longer follows the same pattern, it is too busy trying to hide from the pain!

I used this technique when I was going through a bad patch continually having negative thoughts. The more I thought about the same bad thing the harder I flicked the band. Sometimes I would end up with a red welt on the inside of my wrist but I tell you what, I soon stopped having those negative thoughts.

This technique took three months to work for me and 16 years later I now only have to touch the inside of my wrist with the tip of my finger and my mood changes immediately to a positive one. I guess the brain is worried that it is going to feel pain if it doesn’t cooperate.

Try it for yourself, just be a little gentler with yourself than I was.  

Ten Things To Support Resilience

Here are another ten things that you can do to support your resilience when things aren't going as well as they could;

1.      See things for what they are - Your brain will try to exaggerate problems, don't let it. Keep things in perspective. So often when things go wrong we get stuck in this position and can't see a way forward. Break problems into small bits and move forward as quickly as you can.

2.     Don't criticise yourself - If you make a mistake, acknowledge it and move on. Don't use self-talk (talk to that person inside your head) to harbour guilt, regret, or to disparage yourself. Focus on what you can do to repair any damage or just put it down to one of life's lessons and learn from it.

3.     Find what matters - When things get all too busy in your life, don't try and take on everything. Work out a plan of what you can and can't do in your available time, what does and doesn't matter to you, and what you need to let go of. Focus on doing a few things really well.

4.     Delegate - If you have too much on your plate, delegate. Get others to help you, they will enjoy the opportunity of doing so and you will feel rewarded.

5.     Focus on end results - When you are buried in work, focus on the finish line. Visualise the exhilaration of completing the onerous task and the time that you will have to do other things once you have finished.

6.     Take time out for you - Spending just five minutes alone each day can recharge your batteries for a full day. Sit in a quiet space, no phones, no sounds, just silence. 

7.     Be in the present - We tend to hold on to guilt and regret and cannot see the future. Being in the moment overcomes this. A recent study showed that the simple task of eating a raisin could lower your stress levels. Touch it, smell it, roll it between your fingers, bite into it, taste it, chew it. Well, you get the picture. This distracts your brain from negative thoughts and heightens your senses.

8.     Take an interest in others - Get actively involved in what others are doing. Explore what they are doing and feed off their self-interest. 

9.     Try different things - Our brain needs to be kept well-fed with ‘thoughts’ otherwise it will look for problems. Try new things to generate excitement for your brain. This will also increase your self-confidence and happiness levels.

10.   Create strong relationships - People are the most important 'things' in our lives. Be around them, talk with them, and form as many strong relationships as you can. A problem shared is a problem halved!

Write It Down For Success

When struggling with a problem or difficult decision, a way that I have found works for me is to write it down. Fully describe the problem, think intensely about it, and come up with as many solutions as you can. Writing something down removes emotions from the equation and allows your logic brain to operate.

Once you have written the problem and possible solutions down, examine what you have written.  If the right solution isn’t apparent or you haven’t identified a solution that you like, then forget about it.  Go and do something else, something that involves exercise is best.  When you least expect it the solution will come to you. 

How many times have you been doing something else and a solution or idea pops into your head?  Often I bet.  Solutions and ideas come to us when we aren’t thinking about them because our subconscious keeps working on the problem once we have written them down. 

Additionally, our brain 'strains' itself when we are concentrating hard on something and when it relaxes the brain reaches deeper into our creative side where the ideas are stored.   

Ideas also flow when we are asleep or in the shower.  Why is that, it’s because our brain is the most relaxed during these situations plus it is also distracted by other things.  Distracting the brain when we worry stops it going into the 'spin cycle'.  Relaxation also causes dopamine to be released into the brain and assists with creativity.   

When we are asleep our brain defrags like a computer during REM sleep.  As it defrags it is putting the pieces of our day into an ordered fashion, placing files in the correct pockets of our file cabinet (our brain).  If the file doesn’t quite fit somewhere comfortably our brain will want to know why and will work to find the correct folder, the solution. 

We are at our most relaxed in the shower and water is also a cleanser.  Again our creative chemical dopamine is released into the brain during a shower.  

So why does writing something down help?  Science tells us that when we write something down our reticular activating system (RAS) is triggered.  The RAS is a filter for our brain that prioritises what we need to focus on.   

Ever wondered why successful people achieve their goals, it’s because they write them down.  Not electronically, but with pen and paper.  Our subconscious mind doesn’t recognise electronic devices because they haven’t been around long enough whereas we have been using sticks and ink for millions of years. 

Goals must be hand-written, not typed.  Our sub-conscious shrugs its shoulders at modern devices.  In fact most of our hard-wired brain programming comes from these early times.

Once you have written out your goals, forget about them. If you continue to focus on your goals they remain in the forefront of your mind and your subconscious won't have the opportunity to help you to achieve them.

The next time you are struggling with something or want to achieve a goal, write it down.

When logic doesn't work, go with your heart.