Smiling
This is the silliest of the relaxation techniques that I teach, but also the one that I use the most often. I want you to try to use smiling, specifically to block negative thoughts and feelings, including when you are alone.
What I mean by smiling is just a slight grin. It doesn't have to be enough that other people notice. It just has to be enough that you know that you are doing it. In fact, it can even be just less of a frown. Any movement in the right direction will count.
How does it work?
Smiling works via a psychological principle known as “reciprocal inhibition", which means that it is impossible for human beings to have two different emotions at the same time. When one of the emotions is caused by something physical, it will almost always overpower an emotion that’s just caused by something mental. For example, let’s say you are feeling really lazy one day and push yourself to exercise. Usually, within 10-20 minutes, you are into the exercise. This is an example of the physical overpowering the mental. Smiling works the same way.
It's surprising how effective it is for such a simple technique, but it is almost impossible to have negative thoughts while you are physically smiling. In fact, if I start having negative thoughts again, it's almost always because I lost the smile. It's also interesting how hard it is to smile when you are feeling bad. It literally feels like you lifting weights, even though it’s a very tiny muscle move.
I’d like you to see what I mean by doing a quick experiment. For two minutes, I want you to close your eyes and hold a small grin. I don’t want you to try to have positive thoughts, I just want you to make sure that you are physically smiling, and then I want you to observe what happens to your thoughts.
Grab a timer, close your eyes, and hold a grin for two minutes.
OK. I tried it!
What did you notice? If you had pleasant or neutral thoughts, or if your mind went blank, then smiling might work well for you. If it made you feel worse, then this is not the right technique for you. Move on to the next one.
Many of my patients have positive thoughts come to mind when they are smiling. They think of something funny or heartwarming. Others, like myself, don’t necessarily have positive thoughts, it’s more that we just don’t seem to have negative thoughts when we are physically smiling. I think of smiling as changing the soil in my mind. The same seeds drop down, but the negative seeds just don’t take root when I am physically smiling.
When should I use Smiling?
Smiling is the relaxation technique that I use most often, about 2-3 times a day. I use it to block negative fantasies (i.e. “What if I get assaulted”), fake arguments (i.e. “What would I say if that cop pulled me over”), and ruminations (i.e. “Why was I such a moron in grade school?”). I think about smiling like flipping a page in a book or hitting the "enter" on a keyboard. I use it to start a new page or paragraph in my mind.
If you were looking right at me when I was doing it, you probably wouldn't even notice that I was using this technique, because the grin is so slight. But, if you did notice, you would just see me do it for 5-10 seconds. Just long enough to give me space from a thought and give me time to put my mind elsewhere.