Facial Muscles Express Feelings AND Create Feelings

If facial muscles express feelings AND create feelings, then can we choose how we want to feel and arrange our face muscles so we feel joy instead of sadness, peace instead of anger, confidence instead of fear? Is that possible?

Paul Ekman is a psychologist, researcher and author, and is a pioneer in the study of emotions and their relationship to facial expressions. He showed that facial expressions of emotion are not culturally determined, but universal across human cultures and thus biological in origin. This was contrary to the widely held view in the anthropology world prior to his work.

How did he decide that these facial expressions communicate the same emotion no matter where you were raised?

In early 1960s Paul Ekman was a young psychologist just out of graduate school. He was Silvan Tomkins’ pupil in studying faces and had completed his PhD in Clinical Psychology at the Adelphi University, New York in 1958. Ekman traveled to Japan, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, to remote tribes in jungles in Papua New Guinea, carrying photographs of men and women making a variety of distinctive facial expressions. To his amazement everywhere he went, people agreed on what those expressions meant.

The universal expressions Ekman tested over many cultures are:
fear, anger, disgust, happiness, sadness, surprise.

Ekman proved that Tomkins was right and facial expressions of emotion are not culturally determined, but universal across human cultures and so are biological in origin.

Babies as young as two weeks old smile at the sound of their mother’s voice. Within a few months a baby will pull faces and show disgust in reaction to bitter or sour tastes. Even blind or disabled children smile with happiness, show disgust, cry, glare with anger.

Facial Muscles Express Feelings and Create Feelings
When Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesen were working on expressions of anger and disgust they had an unexpected experience leading to new insights. They were cataloging which muscles were involved in various facial expressions. This meant making those expressions themselves, over and over, while watching in the mirror and watching each other.

What we discovered is that expression alone is sufficient to create marked changes in the autonomic nervous system. When this first occurred, we were stunned. We weren’t expecting this at all. And it happened to both of us. We felt terrible,” reports Ekman.

They were actually experiencing the emotions as they repeatedly made the facial expressions as they learned to activate one muscle at a time and then groups of muscles for more complex emotions. When generating the facial expression of anger the heartbeat went up by ten to twelve beats, circulation increased in the hands, which become really hot. This was stunning to the scientists.

Pulling Faces Increases Heart Rate
To check their findings, Paul Ekman, Wallace Friesen and Robert Levenson set up an experiment with volunteers hooked up to monitors for measuring their heart rate and body temperature. Half the volunteers were asked to remember and relive a particularly stressful experience. The other half of the volunteers were told which muscles to activate, to pull faces, to create the facial expressions that corresponded to emotions, such as anger, sadness and fear.

The results showed the second group of people, who were pulling faces, arranging their muscles without specific emotional input, registered the same physiological responses, the same heightened heart rate and body temperature, as the first group who were recalling a particularly stressful experience. Voluntarily “putting on” an expression can actually create the associated emotional reaction in the body, and of course, change the biochemistry too.

The findings clearly point to the two-way nature of emotions. We can be chatting easily and with pleasure over a coffee, till someone mentions a specific topic or person or event that is stressful to us, and immediately the emotional reaction kicks in, changes the facial expression and activates the physiology of the body.

We have all experienced that at some time in our life. “Why did you have to bring that up? I was having a pleasant time till then.” The reaction comes unbidden, and totally displaces the pleasure of the chat. No doubt the face muscles say it all, even without the words. But we can also start with a particular facial expression and the physiology of our body will change to match. That’s worth checking out for yourself. It’s actually a powerful self help strategy in times of need.

Which Comes First
You could expect that the experience, feeling let down, rejected or disappointed, tired or exhausted, all associated with a drop of energy, would came first, then the hang-dog facial look to express the emotional feeling follows almost instantaneously. But if you feel fine and spend time with a depressed friend or family member and show your concern and rapport by mirroring their expression you could end up feeling as low as they do. Uugg!

Whichever comes first, if we keep holding the hang-dog look we keep feeling low. The face is communicating the emotional state and it’s also creating and maintaining that low feeling. It becomes self-perpetuating. If we can create the feeling, can we un-create it? Can we put on a smile and change our biochemistry? Is this a case of fake it till you make it?

The Solution
One thing is for sure. In terms of Chinese meridian system, activating and using different muscles in the face and body will help to promote meridian energy flow needed for change. And of course, if you don’t move your face muscles, you are not pumping the circulation to bring oxygen and nutrients to face cells, nor clearing the lymphatic wastes products, so tissues progressively more stagnant.

A Touch For Health Goal Balance can support making the shift from low energy to higher energy and better lymphatic flow. Facial Harmony also is a gentle way to release emotions held in the face muscles. Make an appointment to experience the shift for yourself.
Cheers
Anna

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