CASS DA RE
<Features Editor>
Law school doesn’t leave much time for fun and childish endeavors. Law students don’t need werewolves, witches and warlocks to induce fears, trembling, and sweaty palms. Just ask the first years who just went through their first set of midterms. A constant and healthy dose of anxiety, nervousness, and general chills are de rigueur in the haunted halls of Osgoode.
Historically, Halloween fell the night before All Saints Day. On Hallows Eve, Celts and Europeans feared that evil spirits of the dead would roam the Earth in search of living beings to harm. To protect themselves, the village people would dress like ghosts, goblins, and the undead to ward off the evil spirits. Over the years, this religious holiday has evolved into a fun night for children to dress up in costumes and go door to door asking strangers for candy.
What can uber-rational, intellectually oriented, and modern law students learn from Halloween? Moreover, how can a holiday of horror improve our happiness?
1. Show your Teeth
What do werewolves, vampires and happy people have in common? They all show their teeth. Smiling with exposed teeth creates sends a boost of dopamine and endorphins to your brain. Even people who fake a smile, and have no genuine, positive source for exhibiting such facial expression will benefit from the physical act of smiling.
A famous 1988 German study asked participants to hold a pencil either with their teeth or with their lips to create a frown or a smile. The researchers then exposed the participants to good-natured cartoons. The participants who mimicked a smile found the programming funnier and ultimately demonstrated a better, more positive mood.
Charles Darwin made similar propositions. He posited that there is a strong link between the mechanics of facial expression and the resulting emotions. While it is well established that people universally smile when they are happy, the reverse is also true. Smiling can, in turn, ameliorate one’s demeanour.
The take-away here is that costumes such as werewolf, vampire, the Joker, Austin Powers, clown, or teeth model at a dentist’s office, may just make you a happier trick-or-treater.
2. Treat Yourself
Speaking of trick-or-treating, treat yourself. Deprivation is a guaranteed way to negatively affect your mood. It is fundamentally important to your well being to treat yourself every once in a while. If not, you will likely feel irritable, depleted, and resentful.
Make time for treats. During the Halloween season, a “treat” automatically conjures the image of candy, chocolate bars, individually packaged chips, toffee, Rockets, and caramel candy corn. However, a treat can be any thing or activity that brings you enjoyment, such as skating, swimming, reading trashy gossip magazines, baking a cake, eating a cake, doing nothing, watching bad reality TV, getting a manicure, playing basketball, ice cream, people-watching, playing video games or having a nap in the middle of a weekday.
You’re busy; I can appreciate that. Yet making time in your schedule to indulge in something that brings you pleasure will keep you energized, optimistic, and balanced. Being in a healthy state of mind will consequently increase your productivity in other areas of your life.
3. Treat Others
The Happiness Project may seem like a selfish undertaking. After all, it is a personal venture and an introspective practice of analyzing and advancing one’s mental health. Humans, by their nature, are relational. Therefore, to fulfill one’s sense of self, one cannot be selfish. This is one of the many paradoxes of happiness. In order to be better yourself, you must better the lives of others.
Halloween has evolved to include a gratuitous spirit of giving. While many of us do not live in the suburbs of the Greater Toronto Area, and will not have costumed children knocking at our doors, law students can embrace the treating essence of Halloween in other ways.
For example, send someone a candy-gram. It is a small action that will immediately make someone’s day. Similarly, buy a bag of lollipops to hand out. Better yet and sugar-free, be generous with your time and efforts. Hand out compliments, praise, and well wishes. Treat the people around you that deserve to be treated.
When we are happy, we tend to treat others with more sensitivity, kindness, and awareness. Like smiling, the reverse is true. Engaging in selfless acts of volunteerism and compassion will increase one’s perspective and feelings about oneself. Put simply: if you do good, you feel good; if you feel good, you’ll do more good. It’s very difficult to maintain a strong sense of self and healthy self-esteem when one treats others badly or maliciously.
Take Halloween as an excellent excuse to stop the trite tricking and treachery, and start treating people a little bit better. It’s the most selfless, selfish thing you can do.
4. Being a Law Student is Frightening, but not a Good Costume
Lastly, law students tend to take themselves a little too seriously. Law school can be serious, formal and a highly competitive environment. This is all the more reason to leave the books behind, and step into an entirely different world far removed from your current reality. Get creative, get dressed up, be silly, be spontaneous, and get out of the library. There are no psychological studies that undeniably demonstrate that Halloween costumes have a scientifically measurable effect on one’s happiness. On the other hand, having fun is a critical component to a healthy, happy, and balanced life style.
In conclusion, on a balance of probabilities, I deem Halloween to be imperative to your happiness. As you happiness guru, I ask that all you goblins and ghouls get out and have fun, for the sake of your own psychological well-being.