It takes 37 muscles to frown and only 22 muscles to smile. So smile!
How many times have you heard that saying? The number of muscles may differ depending on who you hear it from, but the theme is always the same. It is naturally intended to convey that it requires greater effort to frown than it does to smile. And usually when you hear it, it's from one of those people who is WAY too happy all the time.
I think about the saying all the time when I get a common question asked of me. Although to be fair, sometimes it's not asked to me directly. People wonder why I look so mean all the time. Why do I always look mad and unapproachable? It always baffles me when I hear it's posed to me because I don't see myself that way at all. Regardless of the fact that many others seem to for some reason.
It got to the point where I started becoming slightly conscious of it. I would stare in the mirror at myself to see what my facial expression commonly looks like. The one that was most frequent is the one where I have no expression at all. I'm not frowning. I'm not smiling. Not to be confused with the world famous blank face, it's just that I look rather ambivalent.
Are people confusing my look of ambivalence with that of anger? I could only assume that that must be the case. However, I just don't see how. When I purposely frown, the look is decidedly more different. Not to mention that my brow gets a little furrowed. It's pretty easy to tell when I'm angry as opposed to when I'm not.
So why do I look like that so often? Because one of my favorite things to do is to analyze situations and people. Often when I am doing that, I am subconsciously wearing a vacant expression because I am usually in deep contemplation. Once I engage in a conversation with someone, the smile may or may not surface (depending on the individual), but until that moment, you will most likely see my look of indifference.
One of the easiest things to do to alleviate that misconception that I always appear angry would be for me to smile more. It's not that I don't have much to smile about. It's just that I am so often doing my analytical thing so my face is consistently reflecting my focus of contemplation. Thus, the non-expression. That gorgeous smile (and oh yes...it is stunning) will show itself whenever the urge strikes me. It's just that I tend to be a little stingy with it.
Who knows how many muscles it actually takes to frown as opposed to smiling? I know that from the test runs I've done, it does seem as though smiling requires more energy. It doesn't really matter though because frowning also necessitates exerting some energy as well. While on the other hand, my look of non-expression requires none whatsoever. Plus, I now know that it can be unintentionally intimidating and you never know when that might come in handy.
