Muscles to smile, muscles to frown
A long time ago I heard the adage that it takes something like 43 muscles to frown but only 17 muscles to smile, ergo, we should just smile because it's easier. It wasn't until my first anatomy class in college that I realized these numbers couldn't possibly be right. As far as I can tell, there are only about 36 named muscles of facial expression, and they're not all involved in smiling and frowning. Here they are in alphabetical order (a "2" in parentheses means the muscle is bilateral, "1" means it's unpaired):
Auricularis anterior (2)
Auricularis posterior (2)
Auricularis superior (2)
Buccinator (2)
Corrugator supercilii (2)
Depressor anguli oris (2)
Depressor labii inferioris (2)
Depressor septi nasi (1)
Frontalis (1)
Levator anguli oris (2)
Levator labii superioris (2)
Levator labii superioris alaeque nasi (2)
Mentalis (1)
Nasalis (2)
Orbicularis oculi (2)
Orbicularis oris (1)
Platysma (1)
Procerus (1)
Risorius (2)
Zygomaticus major (2)
Zygomaticus minor (2)
So which ones are responsible for smiling and/or frowning? I could hazard a guess, but I'll defer to Dr. David Song, a plastic surgeon and Associate Professor at the University of Chicago Hospitals, who was interviewed for a Straight Dope article: Does it take fewer muscles to smile than it does to frown? Counting only the muscles that make significant contributions, he concludes that smiling takes one more muscle than frowning (12 vs. 11). That doesn't necessarily mean that smiling is harder to do. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I suppose you could compare the masses of "smiling muscles" vs. "frowning muscles" to get a rough estimate of energy consumption (assuming the muscles all consume energy at the same rate per unit mass). In the meantime, check out Happiness Is Only Grin Deep at the always enlightening and entertaining Urban Legend Reference Pages.
posted by Brad @ 8:08 AM
19 comments
19 Comments:
Hi,
I recently received an email from a friend about how it takes 26 muscles to smile and 62 to frown. I, being a life sci student, of course was very skeptical about this theory. I used your blog and many others to give my friend a comeback about his frowning insult. Thank you for this resource! It's been a pleasure!
i am a graphic design student, recently enrolled in a design systems class. i am working on a map that entails the visual system of smiling.
i searched endlessly to find how many muscles were involved in smiling.
thanks for your as clear as it can get answer.
I always liked this saying..."It takes 43 muscles to frown and only 17 to smile, but it doesn't take any to just sit there with a dumb look on your face."
I just received an e-mail stating It takes 43 muscles to frown and 17 to smile but only three to squeeze a trigger. It had a sniper from Iraq on it with a smiley face on his scope cover. Not really pertinent but made me use my smiling muscles.
I thing that the grain of truth in the smile vs. frown saying is that fully relaxed facial expression can be described as a kind of smile. At least reports of death by curare poisoning used to say so -- and people had believed that such a death must be happy, until the way curare acts was elucidated. Today, luckily, to verify that, you don't have to kill anybody by painful asphyxiation, while relaxation of all the muscles prevents even crying or frowning. People operated under full anesthesia should show fully relaxed face as long as medicinal myorelaxants are administered to them.
I just wander while so many people, including myself, when feeling worn-out and tired by the world, exert so much effort to show really disgusting exhausted face instead of the fully relaxed smile.
Interesting point, Honza. I wonder if it's partly a function of your body position (and the force of gravity). When my face is fully relaxed (if that's possible), it looks more like a frown than a smile, but that's when I'm upright. Maybe it's different if I'm supine (i.e., lying on my back). Over the years I've seen a number of supine cadavers, all about as relaxed as you can get, and at least a few of them appeared to have a subtle smile on their face.
I understand that being sceptical is probably in your guys' nature, but people just use these sayings as a pick me up. I'm sure you and the other bloggers must know this. That being said be a little more optomistic and don't ruin someone elses white lie.
Who cares the exact number for heaven's sake. I'm glad that you are taking the time to inform people, but I think that say, 43 muscles to frown, and 17 to smile is just meant to get people to put on a happy face.
Oh shoot... I'm getting a low score in science if this is true....... NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOo
I got this from a song based on a hymnal. "The secret of a hanged man is the smile on his lips."
This is sure to put a smile on many a face...Just say "Smile...It's Sexy!!!", it's easy and fun!
i like your blog ....
Thanks u r information
Of course it is harder to frown than to smile! This is because frowning is the expression of difficulty (see Darwin - The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals). However initially frowning, in the infant, occurs upon a displeasing sensation and prior to crying. Spontaneous expression of emotion like this requires no effort. So smiling or frowning as spontaneous responses don't require any effort. But a frown will generate the feeling of difficulty (try it). We need to distinguish also voluntary effort from the energy used by non-voluntary muscular contraction. To say that smiling requires more energy than frowning might be true but requires more than simply counting the muscle groups - you have to take into account the amount of individual muscle fibres involved. So it may be that frowning requires more calories than smiling... Certainly we can be sure that frowning feels more difficult - because it is the muscular expression of difficulty itself and generates that feeling internally.
I am taking my first anatomy class and this unit we are discussing the muscle system. One of our discussion questions is dealing with prime movers, synergist and antagonist when refering the "human" movement and the muscles involved in that movement, placing them in those categories. During the seminar last night i asked if I could use smiling as my movement and the response that I got was...."it involves alot of muscles, you could but I would be to difficult and that i should use a diffrent example like bending my elbow or knee... well needless to say i think i am going to take the hard way...I just need to classify the antagonist muscles that go with smiling.... I was wondering .... the muscles used for frowning would be relaxing when we were smiling, would/could these be classified within this group?
cand1esindark,
It's true that, generally speaking, frowning muscles relax when smiling muscles contract, and vice versa, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of the muscles have overlapping functions (i.e., they're involved in both smiling and frowning). Still, it's probably safe to say that muscles that move the corners of the mouth downwards (e.g., depressor anguli oris, depressor labii inferioris) are antagonistic to muscles that move the corners of the mouth upwards or to the side (e.g., levator labii superioris, zygomaticus major and minor, risorius).
i awlays thought if someone insults you,it takes 43 muscles to frown,but only 4 to extend your arm and punch the swine
Although this is a very interesting post and I am glad I found it, It just goes to show you how ANAL we can be as humans worrying about such trivial issue. It is more FUN to make people laugh than it is to make them cry I am a class clown commedian and making you crack up is my DRUG of choice in life. So Dont worry Be Happy!
Thanks for the convo their "DOCTOR WRIGHT" I read all those charts on the walls in the docs office so remember to put a bunch of them all over as well as have your cieling painted with the Universe Its real calming. Throw the Enterprize in as a joke
nice post mate.....
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