Smile and you'll feel better

Smiles are contagious. That would be why, even when you are upset about something, as soon as you walk into a room full of happy people you suddenly perk up. Smiles are good for us, can change our attitude, and often affect others moods.

Smiling comes naturally to us Humans (disclaimer, If you aren’t human, this won’t apply to you). Let’s start with talking statistics. First of all, babies in the womb smile, and small children smile an average of 400 times PER DAY! This is important because smiling also reduces stress and helps keep your heart healthy. According to Ron Gutman, one smile is equal to about two thousand chocolate bars. Hopefully, we all can agree that chocolate is a great satisfier… imagine two thousand times the normal chocolate satisfaction! Or, for you who aren’t chocolate lovers, how about money? One smile provides the satisfaction equal to getting about twenty-five thousand dollars! So as you (hopefully) can see, smiles provide a great emotional boost! But, hold onto your seats! that’s not all.

Simply smiling can change your whole attitude! Even a forced smile works wonders. According to Roger Dooley, an author for FORBES, Faking a smile can lift your mood and decrease stress. When we aren’t feeling so great about ourselves, our motivation is miles away, or we have to give a speech the next day and it isn’t fully written yet and the panic monster is raging in our head, Faking a smile makes us feel better, calmer, and even more energized. You might have heard it said that a smile reflects our internal emotions, but the opposite can be true too. If we smile it can affect our emotions.

And guess what! Not only do smiles affect our own attitudes, they affect other’s attitudes as well! There are special cells in our brains that scientists and doctors have named “Mirror Neurons”. These cells are amazing! not only can they decode an action made by another person, but they can determine the intention behind the action. If I were to watch someone laugh, the activity of my mirror neurons will be higher or lower, depending on the context. Maybe the laughter was out of nervousness, if so, my MN activity would be lower than if the laughter was because of an unknown joke. But not only do our brains recognize intentions behind actions, depending on the action, we (as viewers of the action) might just happen to mirror the action (like a bunch of monkeys). Imagine someone smiles, our MN’s will urge us to imitate the action and we smile. And on top of that, apparently smiles are dominant. When you are sporting a frown, and someone smiles, genuinely, the most likely result is that they will keep their smile, but you will lose your frown and gain a smile! Therefore Smile + Frown = Smile.

Smiles have power. A smile can change attitudes: both the attitude of the smiler and the attitude of those who see a smile, and on top of that, smiles have many benefits for the human body. Connie stevens puts it perfectly, she says Nothing you wear is more important than your smile. If we make an effort to smile, even during hard times, stress, and sadness, we can make a difference in our lives, influence others lives, and feel better, healthier, and happier.