“Smile though your heart is aching, smile even though it’s ­breaking...”

My Mum loved Nat King Cole and I can hear her now, singing that tune as I drove her to hospital for another round of chemo.

She smiled throughout her 11-year illness and somehow managed to cheer everyone else up.

Always Look On the Bright Side of Life was another favourite – and we played it as she ­slipped away, aged just 57.

But people are finding precious little to smile about at the ­moment – unless they’re amused by Halloween memes and spoof Brexorcist posters.

Theresa May - keep smiling when the world turns against you (
Image:
Andy Stenning/Daily Mirror)

Because the EU nightmare is going to drag on for another six months, and ­psychologists reckon it’s pushing folk to he brink. Hexit is causing Strexit.

And by October 31 millions of us will supposedly be suffering from some sort of Brexit-related anxiety.

One in three Brits already claim the EU debacle is impacting their mental health, according to the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.

We’re like kids caught in a bitter divorce battle – not knowing what the future holds when Mum and Dad go their separate ways.

And that insecurity is causing anxiety, about jobs, money, medical treatment... or just a general sense of impending doom.

So how about some hypnotherapy, ­meditation, acupuncture or cognitive ­behavioural therapy?

Now, I’ve suffered from anxiety and I’d never belittle the impact. But the idea that Britain is locked in a Munch-like Scream moment seems a little OTT.

Perhaps we just need to grin it out. Because a fascinating report from the University of Tennessee has ­revealed that smiling really DOES make you feel better.

Researchers looked at 50 years of data and 138 different studies into facial expression.

And they found that even ­faking a smile will boost your mood. Curling your mouth upwards triggers a message to the brain which then sends signals to the areas processing ­emotion, and that makes you feel happier.

Some people were asked just to hold a pen between their teeth, unaware it made their lips “smile”.

And the same effect was achieved. That, experts say, proves “the mind and body interact to shape our conscious-experience of emotion”.

Or as Nat King Cole and my mum would say “you’ll find life is still worthwhile, if you just smile”.