Psychology: Say Cheese! Big smilers in photos are likely to live longer

From the British Psychlogical Society Research Digest, Issue 167:

Look at a person's photo and it's tempting to think you can see their personality written all over it: stony-faced individuals appear somber; others flashing a big, toothy grin seem more genial. An intriguing new study claims that these smiles are a reliable marker of underlying positive emotion and as such are predictive of a person's longevity.

Ernest Abel and Michael Kruger had five people rate the smile intensity of 230 baseball players according to photos featured in the 1952 Baseball Register. The researchers used a three-point smile scale: no smile, half smile (mouth only), and genuine 'Duchenne' smile (muscles contracted around the mouth and corners of the eyes).

Focusing on the 150 players who'd died by the time of the study and controlling for extraneous factors such as BMI and marital status, the researchers found that those who were flashing a genuine 'Duchenne Smile' were half as likely to die in any given year compared with non-smilers. Indeed, the average life-span of the 63 deceased non-smilers was 72.9 years compared with 75 years for the 64 partial smilers and 79.9 years for the 23 Duchenne smilers.

A follow-up study was similar to the first but observers rated the attractiveness of the same players rather than their smile intensity. Unlike smile intensity, attractiveness bore no relation to longevity.

'To the extent that smile intensity reflects an underlying emotional disposition, the results of this study are congruent with those of other studies demonstrating that emotions have a positive relationship with mental health, physical health, and longevity,' the researchers said.

LIFE & PSYCHOLOGY: Pizza Epiphany

Whilst not quite Saul to Paul on the road to Damascus I had an epiphany of sorts yesterday. Watching 3000 people gathered for the St Albans half marathon got me glassy eyed from the anticipation of the achievement they’d all soon be feeling. Despite constant encouragement from my husband that I ‘could bang a half marathon out tomorrow’ I haven’t been able to believe it myself. Then with all those post race endorphins in the air I said I’d do it next year (book publication PR permitting of course – Mothers Work is due out June 2011) because I kind of feel I ought to be able to do it.

We head home, eat a belly full of pizza and I find myself overwhelmed by the desire to get a dose of runners high myself. So that’s it - 4pm I’m out the door doing something unheard of: running in the afternoon. I’m a pre-breakfast girl, I just don’t do running after lunch. So I’m out in the sun taking it easy as I’m worried I’m going to feel sick or get riddled with stitches as that pizza’s still hanging around and before I know it I’ve got to 12K and it’s feeling easy. Might as well carry on me thinks and then desperate for the loo I call it a day at 14K. Now I say this without a hint of meaning to brag – more as a way to illustrate my stupidity – because this feeling of ease is new to me and I realise it’s all down to doing something different.

Seasoned readers of my monthly mail out know my fondness for DSD. My ‘different’ was timing, running a different pace and, crucially, eating stodge. If I hadn’t had done the difference who knows whether I’d have found the self-belief to get excited about next year’s half marathon? Maybe I’ll do one before then now I’ve discovered ‘easy’ running.

I wonder how many times a day we miss the opportunity to get a different, better result in our lives because we stick with what we’ve always done? What could the ‘difference’ be in your life today, this week, next week?

I’m not saying go eat pizza and start running (though it sounds like a bloody good combo to me), I’m saying give yourself a chance to learn, to excel, to be free and to discover something new by doing something different. I knew pizza was good but I didn’t know it was this good.