About six years ago, Keiko Kono, a radio host, noticed that her smile started to fade when she stopped practicing her voice. At one point she had trouble getting the corners of her mouth up.
So Kawano, who was 43 at the time, decided to learn how facial muscles work. After using her knowledge to revive her own smile, she began helping others to do the same, with the motto “Smile more, be happier”.
And as many people in Japan take off their masks for the first time in three years and find their faces a little rusty, she’s trying to adapt her work for the post-corona era.
“People aren’t trying to raise their cheeks or smile much under their masks,” Kawano said last week, days after Japan downgraded the coronavirus disease to the same status as the common disease. rice field. “Now they are at a loss.”
While working as a business etiquette trainer, Kawano started teaching smiles at a gym in 2017.
Despite having no medical training, her curriculum, which is typically taught online or in person in hour-long sessions, incorporates yoga and focuses on strengthening the zygomatic muscles that draw the corners of the mouth. She also thinks the muscles just below her eyes are important, and weak muscles can create an eyebrow-driven smile and make her forehead look wrinkled.
“People train their body muscles, but they don’t train their faces,” she says.
After her work at the gym, she smiles not just at nursing homes and corporate offices, but at individuals who expect that a better smile might help them get a better job or increase their chances of getting married. I started teaching One of her early clients was IBM Japan, where she held smile training sessions for her employees and their families.
Then came the pandemic, which hid everyone’s smiles with masks and took a toll on her business. Still, Kawano was occasionally asked for advice on her smile.
Kawano told clients that the key to a masked smile is pulling up the eye muscles.The TV presenter gave a demonstration her way she said on national television. director Posting it on the internet helped raise her profile.
But she said the biggest surge in demand for her services came in February, when the government announced it would significantly relax its official mask-wearing recommendations.
“People started noticing that they weren’t using their cheek and mouth muscles as much,” Kawano said by phone during a trip to South Korea. In Korea, I made a reservation for a facial beauty treatment, and it was good. her cheekbones. “And you can’t suddenly start using those muscles. You have to work on them.”
Yael Hanein, an expert on facial expressions, said he was unaware of any academic studies documenting the effects of long-term masking on facial muscles.
“Facial muscles can be trained like any other muscle, but such training can be difficult due to the large individual variability,” said Professor Hanein. runs a neuroengineering lab at Tel Aviv University, Israel.
“The potential problem with a practiced or fake smile is that it may be perceived by others,” she added.
In modern Japan, there were other smile training classes, usually for retail store employees. However, in the Japanese social context, smiling is far less important than bowing. Some Japanese women are culturally adapted to cover their mouths when eating and laughing.
“Smile lessons are very Western,” says Tomohisa Sumida, a visiting researcher at Keio University who studies the history of masking in Japan.
But Kawano’s clients seem happy with her work.
Miki Okamoto, a spokeswoman for IBM Japan, said Kono’s smile training session was “well received.”
In Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo, about 40 seniors attended a 90-minute session with Mr. Kawano in October, and many felt their smiles had improved. said Mr. Katsuyo Iwahashi. Iwahashi says the town will offer similar sessions, especially for mothers with young children, in the hope that the town will “support them to smile despite the difficulties they experience” after motherhood and the pandemic. added that it was a plan.
Kawano also holds a one-day certification training for those who want to teach them how to smile, for 80,000 yen + consumption tax, or about $650.
One of her protégés, Rieko Mae, 61, now tells her clients that it’s important to practice smiling, even for those who naturally smile.
“Sometimes you need to have a nice, professional smile, but people don’t know much about it,” said Mae, who lives in Osaka and came to Tokyo for the course.
Masami Yamaguchi, a psychologist at Chuo University, said the smile training course could improve people’s facial expressions and even help build confidence. Studied How do babies see their mother’s facial expressions?
“Even if you don’t feel happy, intentional muscle movement sends signals to your brain that create positive emotions,” she says.
