6 Reasons to smile
Why so serious?
Through the morning breeze, with my completely wet T-shirt on, feeling tired and dragging the last few steps towards my home. Returning from my jogging routine is always tough as it’s slightly uphill. On returning, generally, I am tired and sort of rushing back home. On top of it, the upward slope makes it more challenging.
Feeling slightly chilly when the breeze passes through my wet T-shirt. For a while, it does feel like all the forces are against me. Unexpectedly, a small cylindrical object rolled toward me. I bent down to pick it up and noticed a filled water bottle. It felt like someone inadvertently dropped it. There is a school bus pick-up point where everyday kids gather to board the school bus. I started walking to the group with the bottle in my hand. Before even I could ask, a kid came running towards me almost screaming that’s my bottle, and I gave it to him. For a couple of seconds, I was crestfallen as I tried helping but why this kid is shouting at me?
Puzzled, I started walking towards my home. Just about then, I heard loud cheering and a massive “Thank you Anna!” sound in unison. I turned back and I was amazed by the visual. All the kids in the group gave me big smiles. Their smile truly made my day. For a moment I didn’t realize a tiny bottle could yield me a fantastic start to the day. My smile was back on my face, wished them a great day, and returned home.
But something interesting happened. I don’t know for some reason; I couldn’t still stop smiling even after returning home. I continued my coaching sessions as usual but throughout the day, flashes of those smiling kids kept bringing a smile to my face.
Despite a super-packed day, I had an amazing day, all thanks to my Duchenne smile. I couldn’t resist further researching “The power of Smile”. Here is what I found!
Do you know that a survey showed adults smile 20 times a day while children up to 400 times a day?
A smile is extremely powerful and very important for our overall well-being. Here are some reasons why a smile is important to us.
1. Feel-good factor: A smile has a real feel-good factor and can lift your mood. Dopamine, endorphins, and serotonin gets activated when you smile. You might have also noticed when you smile you feel better. Did you just try? 😊
2. Stress reliever & healthy: Smiling is a strong stress reliever. Whether we like it or not, we all are stressed in life. There is no magic wand to completely remove stress from our lives. Hence, we need to learn to manage it effectively. Smiling is one such way that can help reduce our stress. It also helps us reduce blood pressure, acts as an antidepressant, improves the immune system, etc. Smiling contributes to our overall well-being.
3. Contagious: We hate & fear contagious things like yawning, virus, sneezing, etc. These most certainly spread so fast than we imagine. But not all contagious things are bad. A smile is one thing that tops the “Positive” chart for sure. A smile is very contagious. It’s like a mirror: when you smile, most people smile back at you.
4. Personality enhancer: Smiling is a pleasant act. Imagine at an airport, there are two counters for check-in. Both are equally competent and available at your service. One service agent is looking grumpy and another with a pleasant smile. I won’t be surprised if you are instinctively inclined toward the person who is smiling at you. This is how human thinks & behaves. We like to have pleasant experiences everywhere. Likewise, when you are serving someone, wearing a smile can give a huge boost to your personality.
5. Spread positivity: Smile reflects positivity. As we know smile triggers various hormones which lead to positivity. Positivity attracts positivity. You must have also seen in your life that negativity attracts negativity and vice versa. Thus, spreading smiles can only spread more smiles eventually leading to more positivity.
6. Easy & Inexpensive: Smile is free & easy. Some surveys have suggested that approx. 50 muscles are used while frowning. But only 13 muscles to smile. So, it’s not even physically difficult to smile. Remember, a smile never costs you either. So smiling is neither physically stressful nor financially stressful. Would have been a real irony that a stress reliever is stressful, isn’t it?
To be honest, I am guilty myself. Many times, I have also ignored such a powerful tool. In fact, when I read the survey the first time, brushed it off. A few days later, I counted my smile rate for 2 days. It wasn’t even 15. I felt ashamed and decided to write about it to create more awareness. Thanks to those school kids who brought this to my awareness.
So, in conclusion, let’s download this lifetime license-free software: Smile, and let’s make this a true SaaS (Smile as a Software).
