Reset Your Radar For Friendly Smiles

The practice
Here's a free, easy and fun experiment for reducing stress, social anxiety and depression. It's a game on a website
called MindHabits.com.

To play the game, you look at pictures of people, and click on the ones who are smiling.
That's it!

Try the free version for ten minutes every day for a week and see if you feel happier.

The theory
The MindHabits website has lots of research documented on it, but here's the executive summary.

Research shows that many of us scan for danger in social situations: we automatically tend to focus on signs that might indicate rejection or criticism from other people, presumably so that we can defend ourselves against it. But this tendency reinforces our sensitivity to criticism and rejection, making us much more focused on the negative feedback we get, than on the positive. So that one grumpy person can ruin our day, even if everyone else is friendly.

The MindHabits software "teaches people to look for the smiling/approving person in a crowd of frowning faces. By doing this repeatedly and as quickly as possible, this trains an automatic response of looking for acceptance and ignoring rejection." This induces a fundamental change in orientation to other people, which in turn tends to make you happier.

The result
Studies quoted on the MindHabits website show that after using the software, people become less distracted by rejection, and less stressed at work and school. (When I was told about this software, I was told it reduced cortisol in subjects by 17%, which would indicate a large reduction in stress, but I haven't been able to find this figure on the site.)

Try it, and send your comments.