Smiling and how it may be a useful way of coping with daily stress
Sitting on the bus on a chilly, cold, soggy Monday morning, I rummaged through my bag searching for my daily zone-out distractor, aka, my phone. In a sudden wave of panic, I realised I had forgotten it on my way to work.
Normally, this would have sent me spiralling. I would have been annoyed at myself, catastrophising about how I was going to survive the next eight hours without scrolling mindlessly through social media or replying to messages I probably didn’t even want to answer anyway. But instead, I decided to embrace it.
Without my phone to retreat into, I began looking around the bus, taking in the emotions of the people around me. It reminded me that I was sitting among roughly fifty nervous systems, all experiencing their own internal worlds at the exact same moment.
They say body language tells a story long before words do. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.” Similarly, philosopher Roland Barthes wrote, “What I hide by my language, my body utters.”
As someone studying psychology, this is something I find genuinely fascinating. Long before we speak, our posture, facial expressions, gestures, and energy often reveal far more about our emotional state than words ever could.
As I looked around, I noticed a whole spectrum of emotions unfolding in front of me.
There was the sleep-deprived mother travelling with her toddler on the way to daycare, the child repeatedly pressing the stop button like it was their full-time occupation. Surprisingly, the bus driver seemed delighted by it all, smiling warmly and reassuring the mother, “Don’t worry about it.. I’ll be stopping at all the stops anyway!”
Then there was the stressed man in a suit aggressively typing what looked like the world’s most urgent email about a spreadsheet probably nobody would ever read. School kids whispering and giggling to one another while showing off videos on their phones. And then there were the sea of blank faces, people staring out the windows, expressionless, looking uncertain about what the day ahead might bring.
I imagined many of them were mentally running through endless to-do lists while stressing about the traffic jam we were trapped in. Outside, the weather was miserable. Inside, the energy felt mostly tense. It was obvious that many nervous systems on that bus were operating in overdrive.
What astonished me most was realising how few people actually looked happy.
And that observation reminded me of several psychology studies I had recently read about regarding the benefits of smiling.
In 2001, psychologists LeeAnne Harker and Dacher Keltner conducted a fascinating study examining women’s smiles in childhood and early adult photographs and comparing them with measures of marital satisfaction and personal wellbeing later in life. Astonishingly, they found that individuals displaying more genuine smiles in their photos were more likely to report higher levels of life satisfaction and more stable marriages years later.
Another interesting study, conducted by Ernest Abel and Michael Kruger in 2010, examined the smile intensity of deceased Major League Baseball players using old photographs. Their findings suggested that players with bigger, more genuine smiles tended to live longer than those with more neutral expressions.
Of course, smiling itself is not some magical cure for stress or unhappiness. Life is still hard. Traffic still exists. Emails still pile up. Toddlers still attack bus buzzers with terrifying dedication.
But these studies do suggest something interesting: smiling may not only reflect positive emotion, but also help influence it. Even subtle facial expressions can affect mood, stress responses, and the way we connect with others socially.
By the time I got off the bus, I noticed I was smiling too.
Not because the rain had stopped or because I suddenly loved forgetting my phone, but because I felt oddly connected to the people around me. For a brief moment, I had stopped rushing mentally ahead and simply observed humanity as it was - stressed, tired, funny, chaotic, and trying its best.
Knowing the psychological benefits of smiling made me want to stand up and announce these findings to the entire bus.
I didn’t, obviously.
But it is something I genuinely hope more people hear throughout their lives, because sometimes the smallest human actions, even something as simple as a smile, can make a surprisingly meaningful difference to our wellbeing and longevity.
Written by Victoria MulcahyProvisional Psychologist
