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Key to Getting Pain Free

Stress Free Holidays

Original TMBW Blog Post

Happy Monday! And Happy Thanksgiving!

I have so much to be grateful for! Thanks so much for the opportunity to work with you this year.
I love every moment of my work with each of you and thrill every time you feel better and experience less pain.
PS I’ll be offering a Black Friday special on 1 hour sessions – Tune in for the Fun!
This week, I can’t help thinking about Thanksgiving and the occasional stresses of the holidays. Fortunately, there are some quick and dirty mind & body helps to keep your stress levels down.
Top 3:
  • The SuperWo/Man Pose (last week’s post)
  • A Duchenne or True Smile (this week’s post)
  • Long Deep Breaths vs. Short Shallow Breaths (next week’s post)
A Duchenne Smile is a full smile that involves both the muscles around your mouth and the muscles around your eyes – which means your cheeks rise… and you get crow’s feet.
Yes, Crow’s Feet around your eyes is one of the healthier things that you can do for yourself!
But before we get to the health benefits of a “True Smile,” here is some, just for fun background videos:
One of my favorites comes from Brain Games – it has a great description of a “True” (AKA Duchenne Smile) and includes a “Real” vs. “Fake” smile test that you can take. PS Brain Games is an incredible show that I highly recommend!
PBS Digital Studios also notes that Darwin, inspired by Duchenne’s studies, opined that facial movements influence our emotional experiences. (More fun facts in the video)
In other words, Darwin theorized in “The Origin of Species” that the act of smiling itself actually makes us feel better. Smiles are a emotion driver not just the result of feeling good.
Yes, Smiles Drive our Emotions!
In case you’re in doubt, put a pencil lengthwise in between your teeth and you’ll notice that you’ll feel happier. Why? – Holding a pencil lengthwise in your mouth tends to engage the facial muscles that mimic a Duchenne smile. Kelly McGonigal, PhD admits using this pencil experiment as a foolproof demo with her Intro to Psychology students (from Smile Your Way Out of Stress? .)
A 
British study found that injecting Botox in the frown muscles made it more difficult to sustain a negative mood. Similarly, a German study found that injecting Botox in the frown muscles affects both brain activity and how our neurons process emotions helping us to feel better when we smile. Their conclusion, smiling stimulates our brain reward mechanism in a way that even chocolate can’t match.
Dr. David Lewis and British researchers found that a child’s smile can generate, in us, the same level of brain stimulation as 2,000 chocolate bars…
AND is as stimulating as receiving up to 16,000 pounds Sterling AKA at today’s exchange rate, $24,257.76 USD.
So, your smile can influence your emotions – Wow!
As a further thought – Have you ever noticed that a child smile can be infectious?
Ron Gutman suggests that 1/3 of us smile more than 20 times per day while less than 14% of us smile less than 5….While children smile as many as 400 times per day.
He further cites an Uppsala University in Sweden study that found that it’s very difficult to frown when looking at someone else smile – as Ron Gutman points out, a smile is evolutionarily contagious. Not only do we register another’s smile, but we subconsciously react by suppressing our own control of our own facial muscles. It’s almost as if, ultimately, we can’t resist another’s “True Smile” – and seemingly uncontrollably, we have to join in.
So your best defense for Holiday Happiness…Smile!
PS More on the health benefits of a smile in upcoming posts. As a teaser, a study from Wayne State University found that the smiles of Major League Baseball Players captured for their pre-1950s baseball cards predicted lifespan:
  • No smile – Average lifespan 72.9 years
  • Neutral smile – Average lifespan 75 years
  • Big Authentic Grins – Average lifespan 79.9 years
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All the Best! & Have a Fabulous Today!






Christine, The Mind Body Whisperer 
— Dedicated to Helping You Get Optimized for Your Favorite Sport and Pain-Free Living!