Excercising my "smile muscles"

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I just did what my high school drama teacher made us do as part of our warm-ups, which is basically to make my face (alternately) as big as possible and as small as possible and discombobulated as possible. The goal is to try to hit all of the muscles every day. I did this a lot, on and off for a few years. Focusing on the side of my face that had the least expression helped a lot.

P.S. I like the poster.

Hi AmethystRose, have you ever tried holding a pencil horizontally between your teeth for a minute or two? The shape my mouth is after this, i think is my most natural smile/softened facial expression. Its based of a study by Strack '88.

I've been trying to slowly add a bit more emotion and expression in to my voice and appearance for a while, so I'll try such techniques. I've already notice that I don't have a dominate side, but there are things that I can do on one side but not the other and I also don't raise the middle of my forehead very well, so I have plenty of muscles I need to work on.

I found a site at uni called despair.com which had that poster and loads of other good ones. Always wanted one, but at the time I couldn't afford the shipping from the states.

Difficulties with facial expressions are common with Aspergers; that is expressions can be helped with "Behavior Modification" esp. if approaches avoid "those painful responses" of sarcasm.

Consult with a thoughtful therapist, or any reputable professionals experienced with Aspergers; who refrain from questionable methods of treatment. Some practice looking into a mirror might be helpful; but refrain from over-thinking and overcompensating.

Over time, osmosis from "living in the world" can become helpful (which any thoughtful practitioner experienced with Aspergers would believe) in curbing many Asperger behaviors.

Best Wishes.

I don't see the point in smiling. I rarely do it and nor do I care to.

UPDATE: I have more muscles in my cheeks and in my upper lip than I was aware of. They're getting stronger.

I´ve never been accused of lack of expression, but I´ve often been accused of looking sad or being "too serious".
(I used to practise curling up the corners of my mouth, but sadly.... Honestly, when you can shorten your neck muscles, why doesn´t it work with lipmuscles/cheeks, then?)

I tried to glue on a smile all the time and got headaches and a somewhat stiff face.
Acting helped! You have to be aware of many different emotions and work on your bodily and facial reactivity.
BTW, there is a lot of rather good videos about facial training and actors training on youtube.

Last edited by Jensen on 25 Sep 2014, 3:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I always had trouble faking a genuine looking smile, especially for pictures. One trick I learned is that pressing your tongue against the back of your upper, front teeth can help make a "fake" smile appear more genuine.

Can someone please explain to me the point of smiling. I don't get it.

First I wanna tell everybody out there that don't waste your time trying to exercising your so-called "smile" muscles. There's nothing wrong with them. Your ability to smile as well as other facial expressions are linked "directly" to your emotions. If you feel happy and joyful. You will have no problem putting on a perfect smile. Trying to fake a smile or other facial expressions is a lot like trying to controlling your heart rate. It's possible, but damn difficult. Besides, I don't like faking emotions anyways, and why should we. It make me feel dirty and guilty anyways.

Well said.

I don't know even how to know if this is true for everyone, but I do know that most people can't actually FEEL an emotion without expressing it in the body. This is because there is no actual separation between mind and body; that thick bundle of nerves coming out of your brain and "connecting" your brain to your body is not actually, exactly, a CONNECTION between brain and body, it's a CONTINUATION of brain into body.

Brain and body can't be meaningfully separated. There's no clear point where brain ends and body begins. There really isn't. You can draw a line, but it's not there by nature.

So, back to smiling: For most (if not all) people, a smile is REQUIRED to fully *feel* happiness; a smile is part of a happy THOUGHT. So if a person sees someone who claims to be feeling good but who can't even fake a smile, that is very off-putting. A smile would normally be automatic if the person really were happy, and would be faked if the person wanted anyone to believe the lie.

I think social smiling, just to be polite, is frustrating and exhausting. I'll smile when I'm happy, OK??

I don't think it's good to lie about emotions. I think only bad things come from that kind of emotional groupthink.

I'm exercising my face muscles because I'm just sick of being told that I look upset when I feel fine. I'm also doing it for communication; people can't listen very well when they think you're mad... I've noticed this. People get defensive and conversations stop being productive, when they think you're mad.

My muscles are weak because there has been little joy in my life, so my happy muscles never got a workout. I'm trying to change both of these things.



(EDITED for accuracy. Had said "mind" in instead of "brain".

Last edited by AmethystRose on 25 Sep 2014, 1:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I disagree with this completely.
My muscles ARE weak; they are weak from childhood misery. I feel happy emotions now, but because I never used to smile, my smiling muscles ARE weak. They don't express what I feel, though I'm getting there.

It's to express happiness to others. At least that the idea in it purest form. Most NT's like to pervert it and use it as some kind of social control and manipulation.

Well then stay happier more often so those muscles get stronger. Besides. being happier is good for your overall health anyways.

lol? Why would you try to talk me or anyone else out of the good health practice of learning to control and strengthen our face muscles? There is no way, barring extreme drug use, that I could make myself happy enough often enough to give my muscles the workout that they actually need for what I feel to be understandable through my facial expressions.