American Researchers at Clark University published a study in Cognition and Emotion exploring how practised expressions affect actual emotions and the types of memories we recall.
The researchers randomly split roughly 50 participants into one of 3 groups: anger, sadness, and happiness. Each participant was asked to pretend that they were feeling their assigned emotion and to produce the corresponding facial expressions (for example, smiling if you’re supposed to pretend you’re happy).
They repeated the experiment several times, each lasting 4 minutes, with a 2-minute break in between. The researchers also occasionally performed a recognition memory test using 4 abstract pictures.
What the researchers found is that the participants actually experienced the emotions they were practicing, and the memories they recalled corresponded to their practised memory. In other words, those who smiled actually ended up being happy—even several minutes following the exercise—and they typically recalled happy memories rather than angry or sad ones.
So, if you’re feeling down, try smiling. It might actually cheer you up.