It is truly amazing how much of a difference a smile can make in people’s lives. Simply flexing the muscles at the sides of your mouth enhances your appearance and even makes you feel wonderful. In this blog, we’ll take a look at the top ten benefits of smiling every day.
Do You Smile Often?
A smile beautifully reflects what a person is experiencing on the inside, with the glimmer on their face clearly showing the joy they’re feeling. A smile, however, is not always just a display of genuine happiness. It can also sometimes be a powerful and heartfelt gesture to a stranger. After all, a smile is an unspoken language that spreads good vibes and is one of the easiest ways to form connections.
A smile is indeed a universal form of communication—smiles mean the same things all around the world and do not need any translation. They act as therapy for the ill and they comfort the distressed. And, in times of hardship, a single smile can provide you with a pillar of strength. If you can smile despite your challenges, you have learned a valuable life lesson.
A smile has a positive impact on your body and those around you. If you’re still not convinced about why you should smile more, here are ten compelling reasons!
1. Smiling Helps You Live Longer
Your wish to live longer can actually come true by smiling more often. In fact, many studies—like the one published in the Department of Health and Human Services (H.H.S.) Public Access journal—have suggested that happiness increases lifespan.
Smiling affects your mood positively, which translates to good health.
While smiling is indeed a sign of happiness, a smile can also pull you up when you’re feeling down. It can benefit your mind, body, and overall health and well-being. After all, a happy heart is a healthy heart, and a healthy heart beats for a long time and stays strong.
2. Smiling Relieves Stress
Stress is common to every individual, somehow managing to become a part of our day-to-day lives. Because stress starts to show on our faces, smiling can be a simple yet effective way to get rid of it.
Smiling soothes the mind and elevates one’s mood. Try smiling when you’re faced with a stressful situation—it will not only relieve stress but also make you feel more at ease.
3. Smiling Elevates Mood
Did you know that simply smiling can trick your brain into thinking you are happier?
When we’re happy, our brain produces happy hormones known as D.O.S.E. (Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin, and Endorphins). A smile does not just improve one person’s mood, it also has the potential to brighten up an entire room, positively affecting everyone else’s moods as well.
Try to take a D.O.S.E. of smile any time you feel stressed, anxious, or even depressed. You’ll find that it’s a low-cost therapy for you. And, as we just mentioned in #2, it’s not always necessary for the smile to be real—a forced smile can effectively introduce positivity to your mood.
4. Smiling Is Contagious
You may have sometimes noticed someone smiling at you and involuntarily smiled back. The sentiment that accompanies a smile and the glow it gives to the smiler’s face is so infectious that it makes anyone else want to imitate the expression—the effect is often irresistible.
Smiles are enchanting. The best part about smiles is that their benefits are not limited to just one person but to everyone around. Our smile can lighten up someone else’s day, and, in return, bring us joy for making someone feel better. That is the beauty of sharing joy: it always comes back.
Smile at someone—a stranger or someone you know—in a room full of people and watch how it replicates itself on everyone else’s face.
5. Smiling Boosts the Immune System
A smile makes everything better, and your health is no exception.
The brain’s neurotransmitters stimulate immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies, resulting in a healthy mind and body.
Smiling is a medicine that costs nothing and leads to amazing results. So, if you are trying to stay healthy and build up that immunity, the first and easiest thing to do would be to just smile.
6. Smiling May Lower Blood Pressure
Smiling helps lower the heart rate in stressful situations.
Laughter is known to lower blood pressure and to steady both heart rate and our breathing. It relaxes the muscles and lowers our risk of developing heart problems.
While laughing may not seem normal throughout certain parts the day, a smile definitely fits in nearly everywhere. Lots of smiles a day can help keep the doctors and hospitals away.
Though it is unknown how exactly smiling lowers blood pressure, it certainly has many benefits of its own.
7. Smiling Reduces Pain
A number of studies have proven that smiling can positively affect your physical and mental health.
Smiling both distracts from and reduces pain since it causes the brain to produce hormones that function as natural painkillers in the body. Smile away your pain! It’s the healthy thing to do.
In addition to relieving physical pain, it also considerably helps ease emotional agony. Try putting on a happy face after a good cry; you’ll forget how much it hurt at first.
8. Smiling Makes You More Attractive
Smiles attract other people.
Yes, you read that right. People are more likely to approach or befriend someone who smiles than someone who frowns. Why? Because they know that a person who smiles is more likely to be likable.
The reason is simple: a smile portrays positivity, and positivity is attractive to most people. Smiling brightens any face, giving us a youthful look. You can put on a lot of make-up and dress in the fanciest of clothes, but the glitter in your eyes shines brightest when you smile.
Smiling is also a form of facial workout. When we smile, our facial muscles are lifted, making our skin look more youthful, with more of a glow. So, instead of considering a facelift, simply smile more often.
9. Smiling Suggests Success
According to research, people who smile regularly seem more confident and are more likely to be approached. A smile motivates and encourages interaction, giving you a friendly look to anyone you might come across. It is also more likely to attract compliments, promotions, and new friends.
You are more likely to receive different and better reactions if you are smiling. It is also easier for these people to build and maintain relationships. It also encourages good performance at work and elsewhere. Thanks to dopamine release, our brain works efficiently, helping us make better decisions and perform more creatively. Smiling can do so much—isn’t it amazing?
Fun fact: Smiling while talking to someone (even on the phone) makes you sound more engaged in the conversation.
Try smiling during interviews, meetings, and social events. If you give the impression that you’re welcoming of attention, things might just start working in your favor.
10. Smiling Helps You Stay Positive
Smiling influences our mind and our feelings, leading them towards positivity. It reduces the tensions in the mind and changes our thought process, making it more inclined to result in good feelings.
It tricks the brain into thinking and feeling good about life, the best foundation for good overall health and mental peace. Even our body functions respond positively. Smiling is a sign of contentment, offering interesting insight into us and how we’re feeling.
Every time you find yourself in a negative space, take a deep breath, hold and release a smile, and see how much difference it makes.
The Last Word
Though most smiles occur naturally, they can sometimes be forced. How many of us fake a smile when posing for a photograph? A genuine smile, however, creates magic like nothing else.
With so many benefits and so many reasons why we should smile more often, we still often find ourselves with gloomy faces. Studies show that children smile and laugh more than adults and, thus, are happier. In fact, adults who smile more lead healthier and more successful lives. Smiling benefits us and everyone around us in more ways than we can count, and it is something we should practice every day.
Putting a smile on our face doesn’t cost us anything, does more good than harm, and is something we can never run out of. So, then, you should smile every chance you get. It will make life better, and this world will feel like a safe and happy place to inhabit.
