The smile, a simple gesture but with so much power and impact. Nothing comes close to the return on investment of a smile to make you feel better. Not only that, your smile has the power to lift the mood of others around you, and there is science behind smiling.
Smiles Really Are Contagious
A Swedish study found that it is indeed difficult to keep a long face when you look at people who are smiling at you. See the YouTube video: Coca-Cola: Happiness starts with a smile. This video even suggests that it is difficult to keep a straight face when you are experiencing someone else laugh. Smiling is just contagious! Seeing people smile stimulates our mirror neurons to suppress our facial muscle control, and trigger a smile. ‘You smile, I smile‘ is actually a scientific fact!
A smile is universally recognized throughout the world. No matter what language, you don’t need a translator to interpret a smile. Newborns learn to smile well before they learn to talk. The popularity of the Mona Lisa is based on her captivating smile. No other smile has been more studied than hers.
Smiling is Healthy
Furthermore, smiling also brings health benefits, like reducing anxiety, as well as lowering your blood pressure and heart rate. The happiness level that a smile can bring to our brains is estimated as equivalent to that of having 2,000 bars of chocolate or getting $25,000. Thus, we do not need chocolate and cash to be happy. A single smile will do!
Despite all the benefits of smiling, somewhere along the way as we got older, we learned to smile less. In general, adults smile less than a tenth as often as children. One could argue it’s the carefree life of children that allows them to smile.
When our brains feel happy, endorphins are produced and neuronal signals are transmitted to your facial muscles to trigger a smile. When our “smiling” muscles contract, they fire a signal back to the brain, stimulating our reward system, and further increasing our level of happy hormones, or endorphins.
Even pictures of people smiling can affect you and be just as stimulating as seeing a picture of thousands of chocolate bars or $25,000 in cash. Similarly, pictures of smiling models in advertising were more likely to generate positive moods and intentions of purchasing the product.
In this way, we can think of smiling as being contagious. And as a result, being around people who smile a lot makes us feel better too. That?s why being around children makes many people happy. They smile hundreds of times per day. It also may be why pictures of faces (most of which are smiling) on social media get more likes than other types of pictures because they make you feel better.
Perhaps it’s the seriousness of having a job, mortgage, and other responsibilities that make us forget the importance of smiling and being happy. But getting back that smile and doing it numerous times a day can make you, and others around you, feel better.
20 Fun Facts About Smiling:
- Smiling is more contagious than the flu! It can’t be resisted.
- Smiling increases productivity!?
- Smiling makes you more attractive to others?
- A smile is a universal sign of happiness and kindness!
- Smiling reduces blood pressure ? slowing the heart and relaxing the body.
- Women smile more than men?
- Smiling reduces stress?
- People who smile often are perceived as confident.
- Smiling boost’s your immune system?
- People who smile often are more successful in relationships?
- Smiling can help you live longer?
- Smiling is the most recognizable facial expression?
- Humans can detect smiles from more than 300 feet away!?
- Smiling makes you more approachable
- Smiling is a form of exercise! Work those facial muscles – 5 to 53 muscles!
- The average woman smiles 62 times a day?
- The average man smiles 8 times a day?
- 99.7% of people say that an attractive smile is an important personal asset
- 47% of people notice your smile first
- Kids laugh around 400 times a day, while the average is just 14 for adults! Get in touch with your inner child and share some laughter.
24 Smiling Quotes from all walks of Life!?
- Happy people generally don’t get sick as often as unhappy people. – Unknown
- Peace begins with a smile – Mother Theresa
- Smile at strangers and you just might change a life. – Unknown
- A smile is happiness you find right under your nose – Tom Wilson
- Somehow when you smile, the day seems brighter – Phil Collins
- A smile is a curve that sets everything straight – Phyllis Diller
- We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do – Mother Theresa.
- A smile enriches those who receive it, without impoverishing those who give it. – Dale Carnegie
- Nothing you wear is more important than your smile – Connie Stevens
- A warm smile is the universal language of kindness – Willie Ward
- A smile is the universal welcome – Max Eastman
- Because of your smile, you make life more beautiful – Thich Nhat Hanh
- Do an act of kindness. Help one-person smile – Harvey Ball
- Even a smile is a good deed – Shari Arison
- Everyone smiles in the same language – George Carlin
- Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day – Unknown
- Use your smile to change the world. Don’t let the world change your smile – Unknown
- You’ll find that life is still worthwhile, if you just smile – Charlie Chaplin
- A laugh is a smile that bursts – Mary H Waldrip
- If you see a friend without a smile; give him one of yours – Proverb
- The world always looks brighter from behind a smile.” – Unknown
- Most smiles are started by another smile. – Unknown
- A smile is something you can’t give away; it always comes back to you – Unknown
- Smile, it is the key that fits the lock of everybody’s heart – Anthony D’Angelo