Standing around enjoying yourself with friends
There is nothing quite like it
Catching up, joshing each other, having a laugh,
seeing them laugh, just enjoying their company face-to-face
Yet in today's world
all too often we cut ourselves off from other people
We forget the benefits of being with others
I'll be finding out why being face-to-face is so very important
and why making expressions connects us with other people
and how facial expressions can alter the way we feel
Our facial expressions promote facial expressions from other people
When I smile at you, almost immediately,
there is a smile comes back to me
We'll see how transforming your expressions can transform your marriage
and we'll explore the benefits of a good laugh
And now live from the heart of London's West End its
Secrets Of The Face
Good evening Tonight I shall be demonstrating
how to make and read facial expressions
with help from my assistant Janet
Hello. That's a smile
But first a question
Why is it that so few soap operas feature crocodiles?
Hello love
Hello dear
You look fed up
How can you tell? I was just guessing
The problem with crocodiles as dramatic actors
is that they only have one expression
and that's three less than Michael Palin
They are solitary creatures that
don't need to be able to communicate subtly with their fellow crocs
Most humans however are interested in slightly
more than just sex and violence
We like to communicate
In fact, we like it so much
we can create over 7000 different facial expressions
And Janet will now demonstrate a selection of them
Sadness
Contempt
Melancholic resignation with undertones of knowingfulness moderated
by envy and puzzlement mixed with guilty compassion plus a hint of irony
No, that's helpless astonishment
I told them to get Judi Dench
Never mind. Moving on
Now, the reason that the human face can produce so many expressions
is the way that it is constructed
The face consists of 44 muscles and two bones:
the skull and the jaw
But unlike any other part of the body these muscles are not attached to the bone
and so they are able to float freely
giving them the huge mobility that gives us facial expression
Now most of us can make expressions easily and effortlessly
Can I have my face back please?
Certainly
Give you the chance to practise with it
So, it comes as a shock to discover that
some people have great difficulty doing this
Lauren Deveney suffers from Mobius syndrome
The nerves that make her facial muscles move are paralysed
so she can't really make any expressions at all
We found out she had Mobius
about an hour and a half after she was born
There was apparently a very wonderful neonatologist
on the staff at that time
and she came and told us
and it all sounded horrid and awful and she wouldn't do this, she wouldn't do that
The way we explain it to people who just,
on the street or in the grocery store, or people who don't know about Lauren,
she was born with Mobius syndrome which gives her several characteristics:
she does have full facial paralysis,
her eyes do not move left to right,
she doesn't blink as often
and her eyes do not close all the way
It's hard to imagine not being able to move your face
I've tried to imagine it several hundreds of thousands of times and it's just,
nearly impossible to imagine how would your face feel if you couldn't move it
Lauren's parents are really worried about
how she is going to get on with other kids
I'm just afraid that, you know, she may get teased a lot and,
that whole social scene and friends and cliques and all that type of thing
I think that without facial expression they will perceive her
as being retarded, stupid, not paying attention, not interested
It's amazing that you don't realise how much your face does express your feelings
But Sharon and Dan have found a surgeon in Canada
who may be able to put a smile on Lauren's face
I would definitely like her to be able to smile the first day of school
It would be a lot less pressure on her
It would be a lot less pressure on everyone, basically
Lauren and her family
drive to Toronto for her operation
I hear there is an ice skating rink near our hotel
Do you think we should go ice skating before your surgery? Yeah
We'll have to go before your surgery
because you'll be in the hospital room afterwards
All right, round the corner there
So this is our room
You can open your eyes
Dr Ronald Zuker has helped pioneer
an operation that can give facial movement
to people like Lauren
Our facial expressions promote facial expressions from other people
So for example, when I smile at you,
almost immediately, there is a smile that comes back to me
and if you are unable to make a smile
then you are unable to have that interaction
And that interaction is crucial for the development of self-esteem
Now I want you to give me the biggest smile at you can
Big smile. Lots of teeth
Okay, now I want you to squint as hard as you can,
squint your eyes closed as hard as you can
I want you to turn around and face that monkey now
You see that monkey over there?
Now give me another big smile
Look at that monkey
I just want you to look at the monkey and give me a smile. Smile at the monkey
We take a segment of the muscle from the thigh
and we transplant it to the face, supporting the lower lip,
which improves drooling, supporting the corner of the mouth,
which also helps with oral competence,
and putting it into the corner of the mouth and upper lip so that
when it contracts it will lift up the lower lip and help with speech and,
perhaps most importantly,
it will lift up the corner of the mouth and upper lip and simulate a smile
Okay, here she comes. Sit still Here it is, you see, it is warm. Okay?
By the summer she'll have a full smile
and then for the first day of school, it would be September,
and that will be an amazing day, I think, for her to go to school
and have a smile to show how happy she is
Were going to take you in now, okay? Say bye to mummy
I love you. Good girl
Okay. Here we go
It will be six months before Sharon will find out
if Lauren's surgery will make her smile.
It's not going to be a natural smile
It's going to be black or white, you know,
she is either smiling or she has her porcelain face
But I think that even that, as small as it is,
is going to be a very great thing for her
Lauren's inability to make expressions means that
she's unable to send out signals
we'll use to communicate how we're feeling
Facial and body language say more about us the words ever do
but faces are also more ambiguous in a meaning
What is she thinking? Or him?
Now he certainly doesn't look very friendly
She's completely different, obviously thinking happy thoughts
What about this guy?
Look at the way he is doing his hair, he is clearly full of himself.
Oh no, he's a happy man about to make a success of his day
Happy! That man? Oh don't be so silly and pompous
You always make yourself sound so ridiculous
So, suspicion,
apprehension,
what?
Hurt resentment
Yes, very good
So this is our problem isn't it?
Our facial expressions are supposed to communicate our feelings
but communication only takes place if the other person reads our face correctly
And often human beings are not very good at that
That's an excuse, it doesn't matter, you said twice a year
That's what you told me But why would I worry about, I've told you
It's true It isn't.
It is It isn't
Well what is it then?
On the 29th of February she proposed to me
but I had a good idea she would
and I actually had a ring ready for her
and I accepted
We used to make each other laugh all the time
We were always having a laugh and a joke
Recently I haven't, I don't know, I've not been happy at all
And neither has he, eventually, come down to the fact that he wasn't either
And we are just getting nowhere at all
I think the business is a massive strain on us
Yeah, maybe
I try and make sure there's nobody there when he comes home from work
because I know he doesn't like people there
Now... But then if there is...
Now it's better But it wasn't like that before.
Yeah, but there wasn't for a while, and all of a sudden there was, a one-day,
and you flipped. It wasn't one-day, it was three days on the trot.
But that's because they were waiting for a lift home
You know, it is my house as well
You don't have complete control like you think you do
No, that's excuses It isn't
Dr John Gottman, a psychologist at the University of Seattle,
believes that when couples argue
it's not what they say
but what is shown on their faces that really matters
The way it works is almost unconscious,
I mean, a lot of times people don't really realise that,
you know, when they look at their partners brow,
you know, that they see distress their,
you know, and they don't register that's distress in a conscious way
they just realise that, you know,
they feel uncomfortable,
they'd like to leave, you know, or they feel fed up,
or they're tired of this response,
they don't really know where those emotions are coming from
But there is really a stream of emotional communication
that's going back and forth and all of that information
is being processed and being understood by the brain and coming
and affecting each person's behaviour and physiology
Sometimes I do think, you know, because we're getting on so bad,
that if somebody better than the comes along
then maybe she'll go for it, you know
I can't make her happy, somebody else can
I went to the solicitors to file for divorce
because I couldn't see any other option at the time
Mandy and Eden are going to visit Dr Gottman
in a last-ditch attempt to save their marriage
I'm hoping it's gonna give us a bit more understanding of each other
and the way things are said and the way things, the way we go about it,
discussion in general, or the whole, everything really
This is the marital research laboratory
This is where we bring our couples And we bring them to this room
where we them up to different physiological sensors
so we can see what kinds of physiology is going on when they are arguing
And we are also videotaping them so that we can look at the different kinds
of emotion that they are expressing during the communication
One of the things that we're really looking for is
what kinds of non-verbal things are they doing when they talk with each other
Mandy and Eden are wired up to monitoring devices
so the scientists can see how their bodies change when they argue
Observers watch and analyse the couples facial expressions
to try and discover what it is they really feel about each other
It's hard for me Yeah, but you do...
It's hard for me, but then like, if you say to me, all right...
You're just agreeing with what your mum said
To a certain degree, not with everything.
You didn't, before...
You don't want me to go to town for a few hours,
because you don't understand why I have to be in town
I have done. I have done and I know it for a fact that I probably went over the top
Facial expressions are really important I mean, obviously the face is,
you know, one of the most important things we look at
We don't put pictures of the feet of people we love on our walls,
you know, we put pictures of their faces,
usually they're smiling
And we saw with this couple, you know, that there were really
certain characteristic facial expressions both of them had that reveal,
you know, how they are really feeling about their marriage at the moment
Yeah, you should want to say to me, I'm going down to town
I shouldn't have to tell you when I'm going down town
So we see the Darwin grief muscle, we see the inner corners coming up
and together and the medial inverted horseshoe figure in the brow
But it made her feel was really hopeless and kind of disgusted and fed up
You know, there he goes again,
you know, feelings said and upset
She was kind of tired of that
On Mandy's face,
Dr Gottman notes signs of disgust and contempt
Prevalence of contempt is really one of our best predictors of divorce
and also a very good predictor of the amount of infectious illnesses
that the recipient of contempt has in the next four years
So contempt is really quite unhealthy
Dr Gottman explains to Mandy and Eden
had their physiology changes when they argue
Your heart rate goes up to 136 beats per minute
You are not in a treadmill, you're sitting down talking to him
What is normal for a woman is about 80
Yeah, and yours went into 125 beats per minute during your discussion
Now, when your heart rate gets above 100 beats per minute,
this is true for both men and women, and a healthy heart, you know,
that's when your body is secreting adrenaline,
and you get into this physiological state
that makes it impossible view to listen
But who's the one who kept a diary while I was working?
What I'm really saying to this couple
is contempt and disgust that is unaddressed,
unless that changes in the contents days and she's fed up,
and we see this reflected in her really thinking very seriously
about divorce and about leaving
Now Mandy and Eden know that they are making
these destructive expressions
they can learn to stop doing so
and perhaps save their marriage
I think it is really difficult to suppress expressions of contempt and disgust
that I think you can become aware of them and by talking about those feelings,
you know, the expressions will change as well
The fact that I need to listen more
is more important than I probably realised before today
I think he will try I'll help him so hopefully...
The faces of contempt, sadness and disgust, are particularly powerful
because they belong to a small group of expressions
that immediately trigger a deep,
almost primeval response in all of us
The other expressions to do this are happiness, surprise, anger and fear
Let's take a look at real fear
Janet
I happen to know she has a morbid dread of squirrels
Put it away That's disgusting
Does her expression of fear affect you?
Well it should
Scientists now know of fear is recognized
in one of the oldest parts of the brain, the amygdala
So, of course,
they stuffed me in an MRl scanner to prove it
John, the first experiment we will do,
we'll show you some fear faces
When I'm first in the scanner
there's no real activity in my amygdala,
but what happens when I'm shown fearful faces
I'm not conscious of feeling any emotion
that the scanner's shows that
my amygdala has been stimulated
This send signals to other parts of my body which means
I react without consciously realising I'm doing so
But what would it be like if this didn't happen?
At Cambridge University I met a student who has just this problem
I have difficulty working out
what people are feeling of thinking better time
Some people would call that
mind reading I guess
And I also have difficulty making
expressions and knowing what is appropriate non-verbal social behaviour
Iike what kind of eye contact is appropriate
Chris suffers from Asperger's disease, a mild form of autism,
that means he can't recognise emotions on other people to faces
Look what happens to his brain when he is shown the same images as me
Nothing
When I'm in a social situation I usually feel very nervous are anxious,
especially if I'm around people I don't know well
I'll just try and pick up cues off other people
because most of the time I really don't know how to behave at all
I just have to sort of be quiet and watch
I think I've found some emotions more difficult than others:
fear, anger, surprise
because they are quite similar
in the way the people express them, especially when they are mild
It can be really small cues that lets you tell between them,
I guess, because I'm not picking them up
That's very interesting because if I do this, what you think that is?
It looks like fear and possibly a little bit of surprise as well
I don't know
How would you tell the difference?
Well it is say that was fear and maybe not surprise?
Well, I would say was fear, because your, the corners of your mouth were down-turned
If your mouth had been opened instead then it would have been,
I would have thought it was surprise
Interesting So you've got the fear
from the corners of my mouth turning down?
Yes, yes
That's fascinating. So you have to kind of learn it a brick the time
Yeah, exactly And then you can begin/to put it together
Yeah, it is really hard work to learn
It is really difficult because no one writes books about these things,
at least none that I've read
Everybody just seems to assume that it comes naturally to everyone
I have profound respect for the way Chris is teaching himself
to connect with people to avoid the risk of ending up isolated
It was the fear that their daughter would suffer social isolation
that prompted Lauren Deveney's parents to put her through major surgery
It's cold outside
I'm not cold That's good
Its now six months since she had the operation
which promised to give her the ability to smile
Today, is a big day, her first day at a new school
We were out running some errands
and she told me that she could smile
I was quite surprised and I said Lauren, when did this happen?
She told me that she had been looking in the mirror the past few days
and had noticed that it started working
And I said well, why didn't you tell me?
I can't believe you waited a couple of days to tell me
Welcome to your first day at kindergarten boys and girls
So I asked her about five times to show me her new smile
because it was hopeful smile and I was just so impressed with it,
and she said I wish I wouldn't have told you
She could now smile again and again and again
We smile for many different reasons
and yet there is only one smile
that is the true smile of enjoyment
There is the listen and response smile, where you smile to encourage the speaker
There is the polite smile that you give people, you know,
when your aunt gives you a tie at Christmas,
you say thank you so much
Then there is what I called the miserable smile
This is the smile you give the dentist when the dentist
says you need a root canal,
it's gonna hurt a lot and cost a lot of money
That's one you might recognize from President Clinton
So there are smiles to cover of what you are feeling
So sorry you didn't get that Oscar nomination
Up yours granddad
We usually know that its fake
but nevertheless it somehow serves the purpose
The great thing about the masking smile is that it is so easy to fake
It simply involves tightening these two muscles here
Like that
And there is one other way to achieve this
The genuine enjoyment smile, on the other hand, is incredibly hard to fake
And getting it right can make a lot of difference
Take a look at these photographs
Can you guess which of these women
was happiest 40 years later?
Well, an amazing study conducted over four decades by psychologists
at the University of Buckley, near San Francisco,
discovered that whether we really smile or not in a single moment,
the taking of a photograph, can predict the happiness of our whole lives
What is striking is that we find that
the intensity of smile aged 21
relates to the tendency for women to feel less negative emotion
all the way up to aged 52
We looked at the amount of positive emotion that young women
showed in their college yearbook photos
and we related that to their reports of their emotional lives later on in life,
their likelihood of getting married, how happy they were in their marriage
and how happy they were in their life in general
More specifically, we coded for the presence of two muscle actions:
the zygobatic major, which pulls the lip corners up, and then importantly,
the orbiculas occuli, which circles the eye
and when that contracts we know that that feels,
is correlated with the experience of pleasure
My name is Diana Odermat
and I am part of the Mills class of 1 960
What you see with this woman here is you see sort of
a moderate intensity muscle movements that's pulling the lip corners up
I live in Berkeley with my husband
and we were married right after graduation in 1960
Importantly, you also see, with the bulging underneath the eye,
and a little bit of crows feet,
is that the orbiculas occuli muscle is also involved
I have two lovely children
who are now also married and have children of their own
This person would have received a fairly high score
in terms of intensity of positive expression
I describe myself as being enthusiastic and positive,
one who always thinks the glass is half full
Judy Rapsmith,
I went to Mills College, graduated 1960
Now this woman, I think you'll see a little bit of difference
in terms of the nature of the expression What is striking is that
we find that the muscle action on the lips is about the same intensity that
you don't see the signs of that action on the muscle that surrounds the eyes
I got married to the wildest man I could find
I got a divorce in our forties and so I was a single mother
My name is Betty Anne Wong
and I graduated from Mills College in 1960
Once again, you don't see the visible bulging, the crows feet,
or the glisten in the eyes.
I'll be having incredibly wonderful news and the very next day
it's a just be rock bottom
I have not been married as yet
Our study, rather provocatively,
suggests that these women might marry later,
perhaps a little more prone to experience negative emotion,
and perhaps a little less well-being, in their lives
The genuine smile of enjoyment not only makes us feel good
but it also makes others feel good
This suggests that being good at making and reading expressions
is an important skill for any social animal
but why is it so important?
The facial expression originally had, and still has,
a really important social function
And not necessarily a consciously directed one
That is to say it is of benefit to a group to know if an animal,
if a member of that group, is, what shall we say, frightened
And if they turned round and see that this creature,
his companion of theirs, is frightened about something, it's very useful
So the ability to make facial expressions involved to save lives
but we often use this skill to manipulate others
Sometimes you want to convey what it is your feeling, sometimes you don't,
but if you are able to simulate feelings by your face,
you know how to put it on, and a so that is then used, can be used,
consciously by an individual in order to send signals
which also may, or may not, be truthful
What Sir David is talking about here is lying
Now here is a little test
On this video of pictures
either of happy chimpanzees frolicking in the jungle
or a rather bloody heart transplant operation
and I don't know which it is so let's see
Oh, it's the chimps
Yeah, two of the little ones are fighting
and there's a big one there who is wondering whether he should,
one of them just hit the,
well, one of them'd getting quite cross
So would you like to watch the film too?
Have another look
Oh, it's the chimps
Yeah, two of the little ones are fighting
and there's a big one there who is wondering whether he should...
Could you have told just by looking at my face that I was lying?
That's very pleasant
In a similar test,
Paul Ekman set out to find how good people were at spotting liars
... very pensive
I took nursing students in what I did was
to show them the worst scenes of medical gore that they might encounter
and while they watched that they had to convince the interviewer
they were talking to, who couldn't see what they were seeing,
that they were watching the nature film
Now, I also had them see one of these nature firms and describe it honestly
How you feeling now?
The same
Paul Ekman asked various people
affected the liars from this experiment
This is the moment when this young woman gives herself away,
she's lying, but could they tell
And this is how non-experts like us scored
No better than chance
Okay, so now we come to the experts
People whose professions have giving them special experience with lying:
police, judges, trial lawyers, forensic psychiatrists
and the experts who actually carry out lie detector tests
And here is how they scored
Judges!
Forensic psychiatrists:
Now police
the experts who carry out lie detector tests,
nobody could pick the liars, it's amazing,
except one group:
one-third of Secret Service agents
scored 80 percent
That's seriously good
So what do they know that nobody else does?
Using more recent footage
Ekman can show us what the secret agents were spotting
There is one sign of concealment and that is a micro-expression,
an expression that is very reduced in time, about a 25th of a second is typical,
while the normal facial expression is a half second to two or three seconds
In this experiment, we found out what people had the strongest convictions about
The particular person I'm gonna show you it was about capital punishment
And then they were given the choice
to either truthfully describe their opinion
or to lie and claim to hold the exact opposite of their opinion
So let's take a look at it
Personally, I think that they should be killed, I mean, should be executed
Well, we've already seen a little micro-expression in the forehead
and let me just back that up
Now it's those little wrinkles, they've gonna appear there
They're very fast and you realize what he is saying is,
personally, I believe they should be executed
Now, if he's telling the truth, and confident about this,
that probably shouldn't be occurring
They should be killed, I mean...
Okay, that was a distress expression
The corners going up, short wrinkles in the centre the forehead, okay
We have the equipment to see these things
I can teach anyone in 30 minutes
to see micro-expressions
which they didn't see before
When I teach policeman it's the thing they like the most
because 30 minutes later they can do things they couldn't do before.
I want you to listen to me,
I'm gonna say this again,
I did not have sexual relations with that woman, with that woman...
Paul Ekman can teach is how to spot
the hidden emotion in an expression
but some societies seem determined
to teach their citizens had to hide their emotions
and here is a surprise: this isn't England
For a long time the Japanese have emphasised the importance of the stiff
upper lip in a way that makes the British one seem positively floppy
What's the point?
What you've got is a large amount of people really crammed into a small
amount of place that's liveable where people need to co-operate
with each other and they need to live harmoniously with each other
and so instead of seeing anger or disgust or sadness he was here masked for example,
by smiles or even neutralised, showing nothing on the face
In Japan, the need to control ones expression even extends into their sport
In the martial art of Kendo, the skill of controlling one's own expressions
and observing those of one's opponents, is given priority of the physical prowess
It's very interesting because you've got two masters are facing off at each other,
basically staring at each other,
and one who has more confidence in winning will not budge
The one that budges or flinches will be the one that ultimately loses
But things in Japan are changing
The West is increasingly influencing Japanese lifestyles
And the Japanese are beginning to abandon the idea
that expressing emotion is a bad thing
And indeed some of them are learning how to smile in a western fashion
For a long time, expressing natural feelings was an embarrassing thing
In olden times men were not supposed
to show their teeth when they smiled
Women painted their teeth with black paint
so they didn't look as though they were smiling
They also shaved off their eyebrows and painted false ones up here
These old practices explain that
expressing true feelings was considered to be a bad thing
I was working at the sales headquarters of a company
which was developing a nationwide retail chain
I came to realise that we could sell more by smiling more
Actually you can boost sales
by 30 to 50% by smiling
I first explain how important it is to smile
I explain to them what good things a smile can bring you
Then we practise smiling
I really think it should be taught in schools and houses
If mothers don't show their children how to smile
who will?
Biting chopsticks is clearly an unnatural way of trying to look happy
but it is necessary if you didn't pick up how to smile as a kid
Most of our children learn how to express themselves
by being face-to-face with their parents
but in the modern world this kind of contact is being neglected
Instead of doing traditional things like playing with dolls
and fighting kids
are spending increasing amount of time with electronic games
We are learning that
this can cause relationship problems later in life
Well, the techies have finally realised that
technology causes social problems
so they have come up with a solution
Naturally enough, a technological one
Here at MlT in Boston, scientists are developing a robot
called Kismet which can actually make facial expressions
Hello Kismet, I am John
Kismet, can you be happy?
Can you look sad?
The point about building Kismet
is to try to build a socially intelligent machine,
a sociable machine
For me, what that means is that a robot that is naturally intuitive for people
to interact with, just like you would another person,
as well as to teach and learn from
What else can you do?
Can you show me tired?
What about...
boo...surprise!
We require a lot of feedback when we interact with someone to try to understand
what is going on in their head: how are they responding to me,
do they like what I am saying, do they not like what I am saying?
What do you think of me Kismet?
Disgusting! Naughty Kismet! I shall take your batteries out
It's a question of if you alone for a long period of time,
no matter what you are doing,
I don't think it's healthy
We just, again, we've such a social species It's important for us
to interact with people to feel like we've part of a community
It gives, in some sense, an enrichment to our lives
that I don't think you can neglect
When I have to go now Kismet, I expect that will make you sad
Bye-bye
I fell in love with Kismet,
of course, but deep down I don't think technology is the answer
More computers mean
Iess real human facial feedback
and when we are denied that there can be all sorts of consequences
What's your bloody game? Come on
Ever since cars were first invented people have been trying to work out
why it is that we all behave much worse when we are driving than we do normally
You bastard!
I mean take road rage
That sort of thing just doesn't happen among pedestrians
When two pedestrians collide,
there's none of that anger they received by motorists cross one another's path
I mean, just think what it would be like
it pedestrians started behaving like motorists
Excuse me
Now why don't we actually get pavement rage like this?
Well, I have a theory
Let's have a look at those pedestrians again
Thank you
When pedestrians collide there is no aggression
because they are able to exchange little signs of apology
which you can't see when you are trapped in a car
The same kind of misunderstandings can easily happen on e-mail
The style of e-mail is terse and informal
so often people get annoyed
when no rudeness was intended because they can't see the expression
on the face of the person they are communicating with
This problem has now become so widespread that
e-mailers now send little signs
to show they are being friendly
And what do they send? Faces
So this is the problem What is the solution?
The answer is that about the only chance we've got is to meet face-to-face
Good evening
The benefit of seeing each other's faces just can't be underestimated
We are social animals
That's why the punishment most feared in prison is solitary confinement
When we are with our friends they cheer is up,
we laugh more,
and that is not just nice at the time
it's good for us in all sorts of unexpected ways
And these benefits are being studied in lndia by a doctor who's
become almost obsessed by the idea that after really is the best medicine
And he organises groups that meet every morning just to laugh
Welcome. Welcome. Welcome.
Ready...
start!
So how many laughter clubs have you got?
We have over 600 laughter clubs in lndia
Really? And maybe 800 all over the world
Line up there again
We will attack Mr John Ready... start!
This 15 to 20 minutes of laughter session
makes you feel fresh throughout the day
You inhale more oxygen
and it has been proved by scientific studies
that laughter helps you to unwind the negative effects of stress
and also it boosts your immune system
And all these minor symptoms of coughs, colds, sore throats
and infections will go down significantly
We'll do laughter, please, you have to drink
In laughter exercises we do start with fake laughter,
a kind of forced laughter,
but when you laugh in a group,
you have good eye contact, it turns into real
So half of it is made and half of it is real
But does it matter from the point of view of the benefits?
Same set of happy chemicals are released whether the laugh is forced
or whether the laugh is real
So the body doesn't know the difference?
Yes, that's incredible!
Yeah! That is so weird Yes
So you can get away with it by faking it you still get the good effects?
Yes. We have a slogan called fake it, fake it until you make it
Well, you all know what a good laugh feels like
but what struck me was how easy it was to get started
because when you have a lot of friendly, warm, funny faces coming at you,
you respond very naturally
And a lot of the time when we are with people
we like we laugh although there isn't anything very funny going on
Although of course the whole thing is wonderfully ridiculous
Dr Kattari's mission
is leading to set of clubs in unusual places
He invited me to attend the first session with a lovely group of murderers,
rapists and robbers in a Bombay prison
The prisoners have a lot of depression
They are away from their family and they have got a lot of anger
inside the laughter helps you to allay your anger feelings
Ready... start!
Sitting here, I found myself wondering
do we really want villains to be having quite such a good time?
Then I remembered the people who are supposed to benefit from this
are not just the prisoners but also the prison staff
I was struck by how laughter connected with people
It's almost impossible to maintain any kind of distance
or any sense of social hierarchy when you are just howling with laughter
Laughter is a force for democracy
Coming home from lndia set me thinking:
better physical and mental health, fitting in,
understanding each other, sorting out problems,
feeling better about ourselves
So many reasons for us to seek out face-to-face contact
But what's happening in our society today?
We are more solitary than we have ever been before
And what is turning us into a race of hermits?
Technology!
All our lives are now run by computers
We sit their staring at screens for hours and hours
avoiding any real communication with other people
And even when we are in the most intimate situations
technology gets in the way
Worst of all, we listen to advice on the direction that our society
should be taking which comes from the most successful computer nerds
We are so cowed by technology
that we think these nerds know more than we do
We know that all important human matters
take place face-to-face
but they don't tell us that do they?
Oh no! No! They pretend that anyone who is not a nerd,
who actually likes being with people, is some kind of prehistoric loony
Thank you Janet. I needed that
And you couldn't get that on the lnternet
Do more research -- it's going to be fine
You couldn't get that on the lnternet either
When you're smiling When you're smiling
The whole world smiles with you