No matter how much we enjoy our work, some days are stressful. And/or hard. And/or frustrating.
Worse, once things start feeling that way, it gets even harder to feel creative — or for that matter, to feel like doing anything but checking social media. (We know it doesn’t help… and yet… let’s just see what’s on TikTok real quick…)
There is a powerful way to pull out of this feeling, though, and it takes literally a second. (Though it's cool to indulge ourselves and go a bit longer.)
Turn up the corners of our mouth slightly.
I know, I know, I know — it sounds like I’m saying, “just smile!”
I’m not. That would be cheesy and pollyanna-ish and all kinds of blech. Telling people to smile when they’re feeling frustrated leads to more frustration.
It’s not a smile.
(Please imagine that sentence delivered the same way Arnold Schwarzenegger says, “It’s not a too-mah.”)
It’s a very subtle, very slight turning-up of the corners of our mouth. So subtle that hardly anyone would notice we did it. But we notice and we feel it.
There are scientific reasons that this works. Turning those corners up triggers the release of neuropeptides which improve our neural communication. Neurotransmitters, including dopamine and serotonin, are released. And a nice side-benefit: we look less-pissed-off, which helps other people feel more comfortable around us, which circles back to us feeling better too.
Look below to see an example of how not-a-smile it is. Try it yourself to see how it feels.
