How to Smile With the Eyes Edited by Glutted, Jonathan E., Sondra C, Eric and 43 others Studies have shown that the most genuine smile, known as the “Duchenne smile,” comes from the eyes and has a strong effect on others. You can enhance your own smile by engaging your eyes and channeling happy thoughts. To smile with the eyes, use the following techniques. Edit Steps 1 Learn how to imitate a Duchenne smile. Scientists have pinpointed more than 50 different types of smiles, and research suggests that the sincerest smile of all is the Duchenne smile – a smile that pushes up into the eyes.[1] The reason its more genuine is because the muscles needed to truly smile with our eyes are involuntary; they only become engaged in an authentic smile, not in a courtesy smile.[2] That being said, you can imitate this type of smile by squinting slightly to create small pillows beneath your eyes. If you produce crow’s feet while attempting this, you are doing it properly (which is undoubtedly why heavily Botoxed faces tend to produce such fake-looking smiles). Once you master the smiling-eye technique, you will be able to use it to brighten up even very sly or faint smiles. 2 Stop being a people-pleaser. If you constantly smile in order to be polite and agreeable, youre tightly controlling your countenance and not giving your Duchenne smile much of a chance to shine through. Plus, if youre focused on everyone elses happiness, youre neglecting your own. A real smile arises from your own personal joy, not someone elses. People with martyr syndrome will often say that they derive their greatest personal joy from helping others, and sometimes this is true, but other times, its an easy way to justify their self-sacrifice and avoid stepping out of their comfort zone. If youre the kind of person to forget about yourself, take the advice in these articles, which will help you break some of the psychological chains that can stifle a genuine smile: How to Stop Being a People Pleaser How to Overcome Martyr Syndrome How to Recognize a Manipulative or Controlling Relationship 3 Be happy. A genuine smile comes from genuine happiness. And studies on what makes people happy reveal that it doesnt have much to do with material goods or high achievement; it seems to whittle down to your outlook on life. In other words, learn How to Be Optimistic and real smiles will follow. After all, think about who has the most genuine smiles: kids! They never worry because life is one big game to them. Follow their lead...be laid back and playful! 4 Find your happy place. This exercise will help you recognize what really makes you happy. Look in the mirror and cover everything below your eyes with a handkerchief or similar. Then start thinking or talking out loud about your happiest memories. Smile as you do so. Youll notice that at some points, your eyes twinkle and you get crows feet wrinkles near your temples. Theres your Duchenne smile! The closest youre ever going to get to smiling with your eyes on command is to channel your happiest memories and let your face do the rest. You can also look at old photographs of yourself and note the differences in the way you smile. Candid shots will often yield more smiley eyes--especially when youre laughing or around people you feel comfortable with. Pictures of you as a child are also more likely to show your most genuine smile. 5 Stop being self-conscious about your smile. If youre preoccupied with the color or direction of your teeth, the prominence of your gums, the smell of your breath, etc., you might subconsciously stifle your smile because you feel embarrassed. There are some things that can be helped (like whitening your teeth and getting rid of bad breath) but ultimately, you need to commit to the belief that all genuine smiles are beautiful smiles, including your own. 6 Smiling with your eyes can be hard at first but the way I learnt it was by standing in the mirror practicing or at least try and raise the end of your eyes. 7 Another way to do it is if you find something or someone and have it in your mind the whole time most of the time without you realising your smiling with your eyes
Posted on: Sun, 20 Oct 2013 09:25:30 +0000
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