Perhaps you have ever heard or been told that it is not wrong to simulate things until they come out naturally. This can be, for example, feigning confidence in a job interview when you feel very nervous or smiling to make yourself feel better when you are sad, even if that smile is totally false.

This advice can also be applied to things that relieve stress to induce happiness , like trying hard to appear outgoing or repeating positive affirmations in your head. Does falsifying the positive really work or is it counterproductive for you? Sometimes it can work, but other times … it can do more harm than good.

Fake the smile

It is common to hear that a false smile can produce a real one … or you may have heard that if you feel sad and smile it can worsen your emotional state. Actually, both statements are true. When you smile as a way to suppress upset feelings, it can make you feel worse.

Forcing a smile can even help depressed people feel better. But if you always face unhappiness by forcing a smile and hiding your internal annoyance, you may have severe emotional problems. You may feel fake and try to avoid those uncomfortable emotions that you should understand in order to feel better.

If you pretend to be okay when you are not, the people close to you may not know that you are wrong and therefore not provide the support you need to feel better. Smile whenever you need to, but always try to be real to process your feelings in a healthy way.

The smile can help

Although on the other hand, if you feel bad, smiling can help you, as long as you understand your emotions and express them in a healthy way. If you smile even if you don’t feel like it, you will increase your positive feelings thanks to the fake smile . The body and mind communicate and you can intensify an emotion by expressing it physically. It is as if you start to walk upright … you will feel more confidence in yourself!

It’s a good idea to focus on the good things in your life and remember the last fun thing that happened to you. Focus on those things that can make you laugh naturally. The important thing in all of this is to remember that real smiles are preferable, although both types can bring benefits for you. If you can think of things that really make you happy as a way to change your point of view and make yourself feel the way you do when you smile, do it. But if you can’t get to that kind of happy place in seconds, faking a smile is a simple shortcut that often works.

In conclusion, if you simulate a smile to increase your happiness, this works well if you think of the smile as a reflection of emotional well – being . If you fake a smile to avoid handling your feelings or things that make you sad, or if you think of a forced smile just as a trick to make you appear happy to others, this can make you feel worse in the long run. But if the smile makes you feel better, why not smile? You will feel wonderfully better in a few seconds!

Put it into practice

From now on, put this into practice and you will realize how a smile can help you feel better. Smile down the street at people and you will see how others smile back at you. Because smiling is contagious and others love to see smiling faces! You will feel better and little by little you will be able to smile almost without realizing it, the frown is over forever!

Remember that for the smile to work in you, even if it is sometimes false , you will have to understand your emotions, name them and, above all, know why they appear in you. If you feel sad, look for the cause that causes it to find a solution and do not pretend in front of your loved ones, because social support is essential to feel better!