Just a soft smile and a few minutes of breath can shift your mood, lower stress, and deepen your sense of connection.
How To Do This Practice:
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Settle In: Find a comfortable seat, rest your hands gently, and soften your gaze or close your eyes.
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Breathe and Soften: Take a few slow, deep breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth, relaxing your face, jaw, and neck.
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Form a Gentle Smile: Let a soft, effortless smile form at the corners of your mouth. Think of something or someone that makes you smile.
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Turn the Smile Inward: Imagine that smile radiating inside your body, through your face, throat, and chest.
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Send the Smile Through Your Body: With each breath, guide the smile to your heart, lungs, digestive system, and spine, acknowledging and appreciating each part.
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Close Gently: Let the smile spread throughout your whole body, take one final deep breath, and slowly open your eyes, carrying the smile into the rest of your day.
Scroll down for a transcription of this episode.
Today’s Happiness Break Guide:
DACHER KELTNER is the host of The Science of Happiness podcast and is a co-instructor of the Greater Good Science Center’s popular online course of the same name. He’s also a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley.
Related Happiness Break episodes:
Take a Break With Our Loving-Kindness Meditation: https://tinyurl.com/2kr4fjz5
A Meditation on Original Love: https://tinyurl.com/5u298cv4
Embodying Resilience: https://tinyurl.com/46383mhx
Related Science of Happiness episodes:
Are You Remembering the Good Times: https://tinyurl.com/483bkk2h
Make Uncertainty Part of the Process: https://tinyurl.com/234u5ds7
Why We Should Seek Beauty: https://tinyurl.com/yn7ry59j
Follow us on Instagram: @ScienceOfHappinessPod
We’d love to hear about your experience with this practice! Share your thoughts at happinesspod@berkeley.edu or use the hashtag #happinesspod.
Find us on Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/2p9h5aap
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Transcription: https://tinyurl.com/s4wk4x4y
