Emotions...
Do you think you would be nervous if you didn't have the physical effects of nervousness? What if you didn't have an increased heart rate, sweaty palms (which is a problem I have all the time), and all the other wonderful stuff that makes you studder and stumble over your words and just in general make you feel like your body is full of jelly? Even if your mind was racing, you wouldn't have those physiological changes that go along with anxiety, so would you really FEEL anxiety? William James and Carl Lange would say that you wouldn't. Their theory (in 1884) claimed that emotion stems from the physiological changes in your body, so without these you would not feel emotion.
A different theory that came about around 1927, called the Cannon-Bard theory proposed that emotional experience can occur independently of emotional expression. They did some tests (as all scientist do) and found that eliminating sensation did not eliminate emotions therefore the James-Lange Theory could not be true.
In reality, it is most likely a mixture of both theories. It could be different for each emotion. If your mom has ever told you to smile even when you don't feel like it, she may have had some basis for this according to the James-Lange theory. The smile would make your body feel like it's happy and therefore your mind would process this information and tell you that you were happy too.
There is a drug called propanolol ( I think) which serves to inhibit the sympathetic activation that occurs when you feel anxiety. Some people take this before a test or a presentation so they don't exhibit outward signs of distress. Does it make them not feel the emotion of nervousness or anxiety? To a certain extent it probably does. It helps you to be more relaxed if your heart isn't racing a hundred miles a minute, and you're not drenched in sweat. However, you are not completely calm, you are still aware of the anxiety.
It's something to think about next time you're feeling like the world sucks. Maybe a smile will make you feel like everything is alright...I kind of doubt that it would fix everything though.
That's all for today....thanks for reading.