Wearing that perfect, customer-luring 'smile mask' all day may make you susceptible to devastating psychological effects, says a leading Japanese psychiatrist.
Makoto Natsume of Osaka University says that smiling faces that women keep throughout the day at work dangerously suppress their real emotions, and thus renders them vulnerable to depression and mental illness.He says that removing smile masks becomes difficult in latter stages for many women who take smiling lessons.
He even warns that smile-mask syndrome may soon become a serious national health issue.
'Forcing yourself to wear this smile mask for a long period of time can, as it gets more extreme, lead to real depression,' Times Online quoted him as saying.
The all-day smiles may even cause a range of physical ailments, Natsume says.
According to him, many patients he is treating for smile-mask syndrome complain of painful muscle and headaches akin to repetitive strain injury.
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