Smiling can be bad for your health

Too much forced smiling can be bad for your health.

So says leading German psychologist Professor Dieter Zapf, of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University of Frankfurt, who said “professional smilers” such as customer service, politicians and annoyingly happy friends put themselves at greater risk of stress, depression and even heart problems.

Of course, that’s all very well, Professor, but if it’s part of your job to smile, how can you prevent it from being harmful to your health?

Well, Prof Wolfgang suggests regular breaks in between smiling when you can be as miserable as you like.
Speaking in the Daily Telegraph, Prof Zapf said: “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.”

Now, Dietpixie knows what you are thinking. He’s German, right. What does he know about smiling anyway? Well, for starters, that is a terrible stereotype and you should be ashamed of yourselves.

Secondly, he’s a leading psychologist and does know what he’s talking about, and his findings are based on two years of research carried out at the University of Frankfurt, which was published in the free healthcare magazine Apotheken Umscau.

The study tested the stress levels of 4,000 people at a fake call centre, were they were subjected to daily abuse.

They were split into two halves: those who could answer back and those who had to grin and bear it. While those who were allowed to answer back experienced a surge in their heart rates, it soon died down.

However, the ’smilers’ continued to have a high heart rate well after the call had finished.

Source: The Telegraph