JOKER: How to Be Happy… put on a Happy Face?

Should you force happiness?

Your body sends signals to your mind and so studies show you can trick your mind into feeling better by sitting upright, making eye contact, and smiling.

It’s also helpful to surround ourselves with smiles and laughter because our mirror neurons copy the behavior we see in others. This is why if we see someone smile we’ll instinctively smile back without consciously thinking about it.

Psychiatrist Dr. Eva Ritzo recommends smiling at ourselves in the mirror to feel happier.

“A team of psychologists combined data from 138 studies testing more than 11,000 participants and found that facial expressions have a small impact on our feelings.” — University of Tennessee study

And it isn’t just the scientists who see the benefits of forced happiness. Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard is colloquially referred to as the “happiest man in the world” because brain-scans showed…

“Excessive activity in his brain’s left prefrontal cortex compared to its right counterpart, allowing him an abnormally large capacity for happiness and a reduced propensity towards…