Healthbolt

Warning: Smiling Can Be Bad For Your Health?

by Liz on May 22nd, 2008

Smile though your heart is aching
Smile even though its breaking
When there are clouds in the sky, you’ll get by
If you smile through your fear and sorrow
Smile and maybe tomorrow
Youll see the sun come shining through for you

Smile by Nat King Cole

A beautiful song but prehaps not the best thing for your health according to German professor Professor Dieter Zapf. He conducted a two year study with 4,000 volunteers who were subjected to daily abuse in a fake call centre. Half of them were allowed to answer back and the other half had to ‘grin and bear it.’

Turns out that those who could answer back experienced a short sharp surge in their heart rate while those who had to ‘grin and bear it’ experienced prolonged high heart rates and other stress like symptoms. Prof Zapf says that “Every time a person is forced to repress his true feelings there are negative consequences. We are all able to rein in our emotions, but it becomes difficult to do this over a protracted period.”

Professor Zapf is not, by the way, the first person to look at the health risks of ‘professional smilers’, those people (flight attendents, shop workers) who are required to constantly smile, regardless of the situation. 

Makoto Natsume, a leading psychiatrist at Osaka University, has also been studying the effects of the perpetual smile that thousands of Japanese women are required to practice as part of their job description. He found that “Real emotions are being dangerously suppressed by the “smile masks” that women wear all day at work and the psychological effects he sees among patients are devastating. Depression, mental illness and other disorders are spreading fast, he cautions, and smile-mask syndrome could soon become a serious national health issue.”

So what are these smiley faced people meant to do ?

Professor Zapf suggests that they need to take regular smile breaks during which time they can be as glum as they like.

Personally, as someone who often has to put on a professional smiley face, I’d suggest that laughter would be a better answer….