I built a free web tool that helps you hold a smile for 60 seconds to boost your mood (and lets you track your daily progress).
Hey everyone,
I was reading about the "Facial Feedback Hypothesis" recently—the psychological concept that physically holding your facial muscles in a smile for about a minute can actually trick your brain into releasing dopamine and endorphins.
I wanted to test it out to combat my afternoon brain fog, but keeping a fake smile going for a full minute while just staring blankly is surprisingly hard. So, I built a small web tool to help guide you through it.
It’s called Smileinator. Here is how it works:
You open the site and allow camera access (works perfectly on both your phone and computer).
When it detects a smile, a 60-second countdown starts.
If you look away, laugh, or drop the smile, the timer pauses until you start grinning again.
Track your progress: I added a simple streak system so you can log your daily progress and turn the mental reset into a habit.
A crucial note on privacy: I know giving camera access to a random website is a huge red flag. I built this using a client-side library, meaning all the face-tracking happens 100% locally in your browser.
Absolutely zero video data is ever recorded, saved, or sent to any server. You can check the network tab to verify.
Sitting alone grinning at your screen (or staring into your phone) feels completely ridiculous for the first 20 seconds. But finishing the minute genuinely acts as a weirdly effective mental reset.
Would love for you guys to try it out and see if the "60-second smile" trick actually helps your mood too!