10 science-based reasons to smile right away
Here there’re some proven facts why a smile makes you high
Smile though your heart is aching; smile if you know it’s breaking…
I wasn’t planning on writing an almost scientific post here, but want to share some facts that I’m thrilled about. Enjoy!
Unusual studies
To study success, people are usually asked questions about important areas over some time. But scientists at UC Berkeley did differently. They studied graduation photos for 30 years and were able to find a link between the image in the album and the quality of life. It turned out that it could predict:
— marriage stability,
— scores on well-being tests,
— a person’s level of influence on others.
And the key to understanding was the smile. The wider it was, the higher the participants were on all criteria.
A similar study was conducted at Wayne State University when they analyzed the cards of Major League Baseball players. Now, the smiling ones lived longer, and that’s a wow:
— 79.9 years with the widest smile;
— 75 years with a slight smile,
— 72.9 years with no smile.
Could you believe it?
Smile versatility
The world’s greatest authority on the study of facial expressions, Paul Ekman, confirmed that the smile is the most frequent type of communication. Even the For tribes of Papua New Guinea, known for their cannibalism rituals, who were as detached as possible from modern influence, used the smile with the same meaning as you and me.
A baby smiles on ultrasound images in the womb; newborns smile in their sleep and at the sound of their mother’s voice.
A smile is an expression of joy and satisfaction.
And we invariably respond to a smiling person in the same way. Even a stranger’s smile weakens the control of other facial muscles. As a result, we can’t frown when someone near us is happy.
30% of adults smile more than 20 times a day
And only 14% smile less than 5 times
The real champions of smiling are children, they do it over 400 times in a day
Why should we smile
Even Charles Darwin talked about the theory of facial feedback. He believed that the very act of smiling made us feel better about ourselves.
In his work, he referred to the experiments of French neurologist Guillaume Duchon, who used electrical impulses to stimulate smiling and relieve his patients. The idea was developed by Fritz Struck, who conducted experiments with caricatures. The participants of the experiments held a pencil in their mouths, but some of them did it horizontally (as if smiling), and some of them did it vertically with their lips stretched out (as if depicting sadness). The first ones found the caricatures funnier. So Struck confirmed that we can feel what our face expresses.
So, it works no matter a real or a fake smile is.
How to use it
If you smile at yourself in the mirror every day, you can train your brain to think that you are experiencing positive emotions from your reflection, which means you like yourself.
Strack’s hypothesis hasn’t been confirmed in large samples and remains just a guess for now, but why not give it a try?
The power of a smile
Smiling boosts immunity lowers blood pressure, and keeps you healthy; if a person is unable to smile for various reasons, like with Botox, for example, their amygdala body becomes more susceptible to negative experiences, and they may feel less happy.
Smiling relieves stress: it reduces cortisol and adrenaline levels and increases endorphin release.
Smiling is contagious and helps build rapport. It makes you more attractive to others. And what’s more, with a smile, you may be perceived as more competent.
You can eat a few bars of chocolate or practice affirmations to feel better, but as research confirms, smiling is much easier and more effective.
That’s all true, but apart from all, I just feel pleasure to smile, don’t you?
Thanks for staying with me here till the end.
I wish you to smile as often as you can even imagine.
Regards, Anna
