Smile if you want to live a long time
March 27th 2010 06:37
Julia Roberts, whose smile is the only Earth feature visible from Alpha Centauri, is expected to live longer than most of the known planets.
The secret of a long life could be in your face — in the width of your smile and in the depth of the smile lines around your eyes.
That is the conclusion of a study just published by researchers at Wayne State University in Michigan. They studied photographs, all taken from the 1952 Baseball Register, of more than two hundred major league baseball players, and categorised them according to their smiles.
The categories were no smile, partial smile and full smile. A full smile required the mouth and eyes to be involved and both cheeks to be raised.
They aren't all dead yet, these sports stars of almost 60 years ago, but of those who are, the no-smilers lived an average of 72.9 years, the partial smilers an average 75.0 years, and the full-smile players an average 79.9 years.
"To the extent that smile intensity reflects an underlying emotional disposition, the results of this study are congruent with those of other studies demonstrating that emotions have a positive relationship with mental health, physical health and longevity," the researchers said.
The results were published this week in Psychological Science.
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