Most people know from personal experience how powerful a smile can be within communication and relationships. So much so, that it drives them to smile politely, even if they aren’t feeling positive. Having the ability to create a positive experience for others, just from smiling, is profound. But even more powerful, are the beneficial effects on oneself, in terms of health and wellbeing.

Are you missing an important channel of communication?

Most of us listen to spoken words as we interact with others, but not many people pay conscious attention to what remains unspoken. Words can, and do, convey lots of complex thoughts, theories and feelings, but they are usually filtered and adapted to create a certain impression, giving you, the listener, the 'intended' message. There are lots of reasons for this– to be more amicable, to maintain relationships, to deceive, to conceal emotions, to make others feel better– to name a few. So it's not all bad. Imagine if everybody spoke their thoughts– Ouch! In many situations, however, you could benefit from knowing more and having a good understanding of how the person you interact with really feels, whether it's potential deception in a negotiation or marriage, or when you just want a family member to be more open with you.

Scientists have found that the muscles in our face can produce 30 independent movements– 12 in the upper face, and 18 in the lower face. Working together in various combinations, these muscle movements are capable of creating thousands of expressions. However, most scientists agree that out of all of these expressions, only seven are 'universal'– innate within all of us, regardless of culture. They are...

When we experience emotions we feel physical sensations within our body. Have you ever stopped in the moment of an emotion, to evaluate what you are feeling? And where that feeling is? In an emotion, our brain triggers physiological changes within our body. These changes alter our autonomic processes (processes we don't consciously control), such as heart rate, breathing, sweating and blink rate. In turn these physiological changes create physical feelings, or sensations, within our body. We associate these physical feelings with the emotion. Researchers at Aalto University have created visual bodily maps of emotions, based on self reported bodily sensations, experienced when an emotion was triggered. The results were gathered from 701 participants from around the world.