Hari ke-7: Heart and Smile

Spotted a tweet by @yoseazka retweeted from @ChrisVossBlog.

Everytime you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing. (Mother Teresa)

I suddenly recalled one episode in an American drama series Lie to Me (highly recommended) where they can differentiate fake smile from the real one by examining micro-expresion. Interested?

The red one is the zygomatic major muscle

According to Wikipedia (though some say you can't rely 100% to this encyclopedia, it IS very useful), it is the zygomatic major muscle that is responsible for our smile. This muscle of facial expression draws the angle of the mouth superiorly and posteriorly, resulted in rise of the corners of the mouth. 

So back to our topic, how can we determine real smile?

It turns out that to create true smile the muscle has a partner in crime, the orbicularis oculis muscle. It raises the cheeks and forms crow's feet around the eyes. This type of smile is also called as Duchenne smile, named after French physician Guillaume Duchenne who first recognized the muscles involved in this smile. 

Can you guess how fake smile (known as the "Botox smile" or the Pan-Am smile) is created? Yes, only the zygomatic major muscle does the contraction. Voluntarily as form of politeness. 

In brief, if someone feels genuinely happy or has positive emotion, the eyes speak along with the smile. To be added, you can feel it when you see it because real smile comes from the heart. And I bet, in an instant, you will smile and feel happy too. Sincerity does resonate, right?

I remember what Muhammad Rasulullah saw said, as reported by Abu Dhar:

"Your smile to your brother is a sadaqah (charitable act) for you. Your commanding the right and forbidding the wrong is sadaqah. Your guiding a man in the land of misguidance is a sadaqah for you. Your seeing (showing the way) for a man with bad eyesight is a sadaqah for you. Your removing a stone or thorn or bone from the road is a sadaqah for you. Your emptying your bucket of water into your brother's (empty) bucket is a sadaqah for you." [Tirmidhi]

Keep this hadith in mind and you'll find harder to fake your smile. I hope (though sometimes fake smiles are somehow needed for courtesy).

Smile :)

PS: 

Here are some tips to recognize genuine smile [etiquette-social-situations.knoji.com]:

• Look at the end of eyebrows which dip slightly with real smile. The fold of the skin between the eyebrow and the eyelid also moves downward when a smile is sincere. Likewise, the eyes crease up.
• A fake smile is also less symmetrical than a genuine smile since a forced or voluntarily control of the zygomatic major is not always perfect. Such smile appears to be a bit more left sided or right sided. 
• A real smile lasts for only a few seconds while a fake one can last much longer. A fake smile can be held for as long as one wants. 

Sources:

Smile

[Images are from here (smile) and here (muscle)]