To see faces early in the morning, I have a one-hour Chinese lesson every day at 6 a.m. Today my teacher said, “I feel very happy.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“It’s because you see my face every morning,” I said.
“No, it isn’t that,” she said.
Have you found that the effect on your mood is different when you see another’s face, compared to when you see your mirror-image?
No I haven’t found a difference.
Another type of self-experiment available is working with one’s hands to lessen depression. Kelly Lambert talks about this in her book Lifting Depression. A personal example for her is that vacuuming helped resolve her depression. She cites many cultures that work a lot with their hands, for example the Amish, that have much lower incidences of depression.
I have never knit before, but today I went to a yarn store and bought knitting needles and yarn to make a scarf. I plan to track the hours I spend knitting and any change in mood.