Online game smiles seen vanquishing the blues

By Solarina Ho

TORONTO (Reuters Life!) - Find the smiling face on the computer screen and reduce stress.

Researchers at McGill University in Montreal say that tests have shown that doing just that for five or 10 minutes helps cut stress and boosts confidence.

The McGill research team has developed the MindHabits Trainer game, in which one exercise shows a grid of faces, with 15 of them frowning and one smiling. The player must find the smiling face as quickly as possible.

"It's harder than it sounds," said McGill psychology professor Mark Baldwin, who led the team.

The idea is that through repetitive playing, the mind is trained to focus on the positive aspects of life.

In a field test, a sample group of telemarketers was asked to play the game everyday for a week just before their shift. A control group spent five to 10 minutes playing another game, without smiling faces, before their shift started.

At the end of the week, the group that played the "find the smile" exercise reported feeling less stressed, had higher self esteem, made more sales, and were rated as being more confident in their phone calls. Most remarkably, said Balwin, they had 17 percent lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

Findings from the study appear in the October issue of the American Psychological Association's Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.