"Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy."
-- Thich Nhat Hanh.
The very first thing people note when looking at me is my SMILE :) Never underestimate the power of a smile. Use yours and you’ll find it helps to disperse sadness and dissolve stress. When dressing in the morning, remember “Before you put on a frown, make absolutely sure there are no smiles available.”smiling also makes us look good in the eyes of others. When we smile we not only appear more likeable and courteous, but we’re actually perceived to be more competent.
- When you smile, you look good and feel good
- When others see you smile, they smile too
- When others smile, they look good and feel good too
Perhaps this is why Mother Teresa said: “I will never understand all the good that a simple smile can accomplish.” What’s the catch? Only that the smile you give has to be big, and genuine!
Recently I made an interesting discovery while running – a simple act that made a dramatic difference and helped carry me through the most challenging segments of long distance runs: smiling. This inspired me to embark on a journey that took me through neuroscience, anthropology, sociology and psychology to uncover the untapped powers of the smile.
I learned that we’re part of a naturally smiling species, that we can use our smiling powers to positively impact almost any social situation, and that smiling is really good for us.Surprisingly, we’re actually born smiling. 3-D ultrasound technology now shows that developing babies appear to smile even in the womb.After they’re born, babies continue to smile (initially mostly in their sleep) and even blind babies smile in response to the sound of the human voice.
Smiling is not just a universal means of communicating, it’s also a frequent one. More than 30% of us smile more than 20 times a day and less than 14% of us smile less than 5 times a day. In fact, those with the greatest superpowers are actually children, who smile as many as 400 times per day!Have you ever wondered why being around children who smile frequently makes you smile more often? Two studies from 2002 and 2011 at Uppsala University in Sweden confirmed that other people’s smiles actually suppress the control we usually have over our facial muscles, compelling us to smile. They also showed that it’s very difficult to frown when looking at someone who smiles.Why? Because smiling is evolutionarily contagious and we have a subconscious innate drive to smile when we see one. This occurs even among strangers when we have no intention to connect or affiliate with the other person. Mimicking a smile and experiencing it physically helps us interpret how genuine a smile is, so that we can understand the real emotional state of the smiler.
Expression Affects Emotion
In psychology, there is a theory entitled the "facial feedback" hypothesis. This hypothesis states that "involuntary facial movements provide sufficient peripheral information to drive emotional experience." The authors of another study wrote that "feedback from facial expression affects emotional expression and behavior." In simple terms, you may actually be able to improve your mood by simply smiling!
A number of research projects support this hypothesis. One study found that involuntary biological changes similar to those caused by emotions were experienced by participants who were instructed to make certain faces. A person told to make an angry face experienced increased blood flow to the hands and feet, which is also seen in those who are experiencing anger. Participants from another study involving posed faces reported more favorable impressions of other people when they were asked to smile.
A deep inner smile spreads like a relaxing elixir, making us receptive to transforming negative energy into positive. Conversely, a scowl suppresses the immune system by increasing stress and blocking energy. Research by French physiologist Dr Israel Waynbaum indicates that facial muscles used to express emotion trigger specific brain neurotransmitters. Smiling triggers happy healing hormones such as ecstatic endorphins and immune-boosting killer T-cells, whereas frowning triggers the secretion of stress hormones.Smile therapy lowers the stress hormones cortisol, adrenaline and noradrenaline and produces hormones that stabilise blood pressure, relax muscles, improve respiration, reduce pain, accelerate healing and stabilise mood.
1. If you’re feeling down, the stress hormones secreted with a scowl may increase blood pressure, weaken the immune system, increase susceptibility to infections and exacerbate depression and anxiety.But what if you don’t feel like smiling? Can you fake it till you make it? Though a heartfelt smile has a deeper effect, even a surface smile tricks the brain into releasing happy hormones, according to facial biofeedback research.
2. And the more you smile, the more you want to smile, concluded a study where participants were
either prevented from smiling or encouraged to smile by holding a pencil in their mouth (those who held the pencil in their teeth and were able to smile rated cartoons as funnier than those who held the pencil in their lips and couldn’t smile).
3. This is because each time you smile, you reinforce happy neural pathways that fire more spontaneously with each subsequent use. Self-love smiling circuits then release healing nectar, while self-hate messages release toxins that breed disease, according to Taoism.
The smile trial
How often do you smile? Try the smile trial for a minute. Relax your face and let a subtle Mona Lisa smile spread from your eyes to your lips. Now frown and sense the emotional and energetic shift. Feel the difference? Considering it takes only 26 muscles to smile and 62 muscles to frown, why wear the strain of a scowl? As motivational speaker Les Giblin says, “If you're not using your smile, you're like a man with a million dollars in the bank and no cheque book.”
Britain also has smile statistics, with research revealing that if you smile at 100 people, 70 will smile back in Bristol, 68 in Glasgow, 18 in London and only four in Edinburgh.It’s easy to share a smile, since it’s the second most contagious facial expression after yawning. A smiling face is always beautiful and an endearing accessory, while an ugly expression will overshadow meticulous attention to grooming and dress every time. But smiles do more than increase your face value: British researchers found that receiving a smile could give more pleasure than eating chocolate. It also generated much higher levels of stimulation to the brain and heart than being given money or having a cigarette did.
In my fascinating journey to uncover more about smiling, I discovered something far greater than just a way to get through a challenging run – I found a simple and surprisingly powerful way to significantly improve my own life and the lives of others.So now, whenever you want to look great and competent, improve your friends circle, or reduce your stress…or whenever you want to feel as good as when you've enjoyed a stack of high quality chocolate without incurring the caloric cost, or as if you randomly found Rs.100 in the pocket of a jacket you havent’t worn for ages…or when you want to tap into a superpower and help yourself and others live longer, healthier happier lives … SMILE :-)
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