Why Is This Man Smiling?
I seem to have acquired a beneficial habit. I think it began one day when I happened to notice that my face in the mirror had a very grumpy expression. The thought emerged, “Hey dude, lighten up,” and I smiled. That reminded me of an idea that’s been floating around for some time: that the facial muscles are interconnected with the emotions, such that, on the one hand, emotions trigger facial expressions, and on the other, facial expressions trigger emotions. It seems to be a two-way street. Based on that I resolved, facing myself in the mirror, that I would smile more often.
I started noticing that same grumpy expression in various other circumstances, and that it was accompanied by a mildly negative mental state. Each time I noticed it, I would smile, and at the same time would find myself feeling amused.
It seemed that a grumpy-face-recognition module had emerged in my brain, and every time it was activated it produced a smile and a livelier mood. My brain’s evolution had apparently produced an automatic behavior modification system, with a built-in reward circuit.
Soon I realized that it was being activated by things other than a grumpy face. As I went through the day, I would notice the occasional mental gaffe–like opening the freezer instead of the refrigerator door–or a very common one which I have labeled, “trajectory error:”
My brain seems to have a defect in its trajectory-calculation module, which occurs most often in trying to move an object from one location to another. For example, the objective might be to remove a cup from the cabinet and place it on the counter, but my brain seems to overlook the shelf that the cup is sitting on. Instead of moving the cup out and down, my brain prefers a straight line, which unfortunately intersects the shelf in question with an unpleasant clunk. My former response to such an event was to mentally note, “trajectory error,” but the mentally-noting module’s response has been replaced by the smiling-mood-lifter (SML) module’s response. Sometimes I even chuckle.
Of course, it’s very nice to find myself smiling and happy through the day, amused by the emergence of grumpy-face, trajectory-error, and various other mental aberrations. But a couple of days ago, an even more impressive accomplishment of this new module surfaced. I was engaged in the making-the-bed ritual, which precedes the first-cup-of-coffee ritual, when I realized I was depressed. I was thinking about possible activities I might pursue in the coming day, and none of them sounded interesting. In fact, they sounded less than interesting: they sounded like drudgery. I wondered what might have brought that on, then remembered that I had been to the gym the day before, and realized I was tired. That realization activated the SML module, replacing the depression, and I thought, wow, that’s nice!
But a few minutes later, I noticed another depressed thought, followed by the observation: Man, we are really stuck in depressed mode today. That observation re-activated the SML module, and depression was again replaced by amusement. In all, it took about three activations before my mood stabilized in the happy zone. Of course, that first cup of coffee may have had something to do with it, giving my brain’s new self-modification system some ingested chemical help.
Then yesterday, going down in the elevator, I noticed myself heaving a sigh of relief at this brief break in the day’s activity, and the sigh activated a smile. This could get to be a real habit.
Yes, This Makes Me Smile, Too
October 26th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
[...] I have written before about smiling as a mood-altering technique, and fortunately, it soon occurred to me to apply it to this situation. I started smiling at the [...]