Many Japanese citizens are taking formal lessons in how to smile again after three years of wearing masks ruined their facial expressions, according to Japan’s Asahi Shimbun newspaper.
Some people are so nervous about their atrophied smiling skills that they insist on private lessons instead of group therapy.
Smile trainer Kawano Keiko said requests for lessons shot up by 450 percent after Japan formally ended the coronavirus pandemic in February and lifted mask recommendations in March. She said requests for private individual lessons began surging at the beginning of the year.
“With mask wearing having become the norm, people have had fewer opportunities to smile, and more and more people have developed a complex about it,” she said.
Kawano was ready to grab the increased business, having gone to work as a smile trainer long before that. She told the New York Times (NYT) on Monday that she began studying the physiology of smiling six years ago when her own ability to smile faded during years of working on a radio show.
After transitioning from radio work to teaching business etiquette, Kawano discovered an eager clientele who wanted to learn the techniques she developed to improve her own smile. Her early customers came from corporations, nursing homes, and anxious job seekers who thought a winning smile could help them find employment.
Kawano said her techniques were adapted from yoga and focused on strengthening the muscles around the mouth and eyes. She found the muscles beneath the eyes were critical to creating a relaxed, inviting smile.
Asahi Shimbun interviewed Kawano while she was teaching a class of 37 people how to smile. Some of her students were elderly, which seemed to surprise the journalists, perhaps because they assumed a long lifetime of facial expressions and communications skills would not be erased so quickly by compulsive mask-wearing.
Kawano said her business faltered a bit during the pandemic once masks were everywhere, but she still entertained requests from people who wanted to learn how to smile through their masks. Her appointment book started filling up after a nationwide TV station ran a segment on her unusual trade.
The Japan Times reported Kawano’s Egao Trainer Association has certified over 700 “smile specialists” since its doors opened in 2017 (Egao means “smiling face,” and the art of learning to smile is called egaoiku). Certification requires a day of training and costs about $650.
Kawano currently has 20 assistant trainers helping her keep up with business. Other smile trainers reported similar surges of interest after mask requirements were lifted.
Some doctors and behavioral scientists view egaoiku with gentle skepticism, noting there are no peer-review studies that show masking can cause people to forget how to smile. Smile training could be more psychologically beneficial than physiologically necessary, giving students the confidence to smile after years of tense social relationships due to masking.
Japan could be a special case because big smiles are somewhat less part of the culture, particularly when meeting strangers.
“Some Japanese women are also acculturated to cover their mouths when eating or laughing,” the NYT noted. Kawano and other smile trainers said their clientele skews female, but a growing number of men are interested in their services — especially now that videoconferencing is so commonplace — and smiling is more useful than bowing as a greeting.
All of the smile trainers interviewed by Japanese and foreign media reported high customer satisfaction with their services, possibly because smiling generally makes people feel better. Some Japanese municipal governments are setting up smile classes as morale boosters for people anxious about the post-pandemic world.
“Intentional muscle moves will send signals to your brain and generate positive feelings, even if you are not feeling happy,” Chuo University psychologist Masami Yamaguchi explained to the NYT.