On the face of it, there couldn’t be a worse time to tell Brits to smile more.
So when biscuit firm Belvita launched a Smile Spreaders campaign this week I feared it would only prompt a wry, ironic twitch of our collective zygomaticus muscles. Time to “spread some positive energy”, eh?
We’ve got soaring inflation, rocketing food prices, mortgage hikes and precious little actual energy. Falling wages, impending blackouts, a knackered NHS and a Russian despot on the warpath. And a government so utterly inept and chaotic that it’s turned our proud nation into an international laughing stock.
Hardly the time to say: “Smile, it could be worse!”, is it?
“Cheer up, might never happen!”? Already has.
Jolly old Blighty is fast becoming a nation of anguished frowns, rictus grins and mouths as downturned as our economic fortunes.
So what the heck do we actually have to smile about? Well, I put my cynicism on hold for a minute and read a bit more about the campaign which highlights the positivity of community heroes.
And I discovered what Brits really think about smiling, according to the Belvita poll.
Three quarters claimed a smile from a stranger brightens their day while 62% said it makes them feel more confident and positive about life.
And that simple little human connection makes them feel empowered to pass on the positive energy to other strangers, friends and family. Then I noticed that Katie Piper OBE was throwing her weight behind the Smile Spreaders drive.
And having met this truly inspirational burns survivor several times and witnessed the megawatt energy of HER smile I began to get the point.
“We don’t realise the true impact our smiles have on others,” Katie says. “It’s a small gesture that can really change someone’s day.”
And, it turns out, the timing of this new campaign couldn’t have been better. Because the results of a major study into smiling have just been published by US scientists.
They’d been testing Charles Darwin’s “facial feedback hypothesis” that claims an individual’s emotions are influenced by their facial movements.
And they found that by turning up the corners of our mouths and painting on a grin we make ourselves feel better.
“The stretch of a smile can make people feel happy,” the study’s author explained. “The conscious experience of emotion must be at least partially based on bodily sensations.”
So, in the bleak and difficult months ahead, we Brits should remember we do have millions of reasons to smile after all. We can smile for ourselves and for each other.
And keep smiling through, just like we always do, ‘til the blue skies chase those dark clouds far away.
