Imagine the following scenario.
Imagine if you were in a very intense mood, if you were very furious for whatever reason, and then someone appeared in front of you with a smile, what would you do?
Will you be in the same frame of mind as the others?
It’s possible, but it’s also possible that it’s not.
A 50/50 possibility exists.
However, what if the same person smiles at you again after knowing your very negative mood?
Is it possible for you to be in the same frame of mind?
Like Amitabh Bachchan’s angry young man image in majority of his films?
I’m sure you can’t.
Instead, you may return the smile.
That is the power of smile.
A smile can make your day!
Why do we smile in the first place?
Physiological changes in the body, psychological causes such as communication gestures involving facial muscles are all reasons to smile. A smile can also lift one’s spirits and improve one’s attitude toward others. Because a smile has a favourable influence on oneself, it is incredibly significant to humans.
Human beings convey their enjoyment and relaxation to others by smiling. Human smiles are one of the most essential messages in social communication since they can reveal a person’s personality. A smile is universally understood and has no linguistic barrier.
A smile is an universal language of kindness.
Before we go any further, here’s how Webster’s Third International Dictionary defines the term “smile”:
Smile, n.: a change in facial expression characterised by a brightening of the eyes and an upward curving of the corners of the mouth, with no sound and less muscular distortion of the features than a laugh, and used to express amusement, pleasure, tender affection, approval, restrained mirth, irony, derision, or any other emotion.
On the one hand, particular facial motions are defined, and on the other hand, the feelings or attitudes indicated by those movements are defined. The definition appears to be reasonable.
So, when we smile, what happens in our brains? Assume we’re in a relaxing environment, perhaps watching a comedy film. Endorphins are made in our brains when we are joyful, and neuronal signals are sent to the face muscles, causing us to smile. The positive feedback loop of happiness begins here.
When our muscles contract, they send a signal to the brain, which stimulates our reward system and raises our levels of happy hormones, or endorphins. In other words, we smile when our brain is happy, and our brain is happy when we smile.
There are a plethora of different varieties of smiles, each with its own appearance and message. Most grins, for example, express pleasant emotions like pleasure from physical or sensory pleasure. Many others, on the other hand, find themselves smiling when they are unhappy. These grins aren’t forced, thus they’re not the same as false smiles, which are used to fool others into thinking they’re pleased while hiding a true unpleasant emotion.
According to Dr. Ekman’s research, most individuals have a hard time figuring out which of these grins are fake, and the problem, he claims, isn’t only a lack of recognition of deceptive smiles.
There are 19 different sorts of smiles, according to scientists.
The most intriguing aspect, though, is that they don’t all appear to be happy! When we’re having a wonderful time, we only have six grins. The remaining 13 are set aside for different scenarios.
When we’re apprehensive, uncomfortable, embarrassed, or even unhappy, our smile takes on a new contour. These “non-enjoyment” smiles are more about the signals we want to send to others than about how we’re feeling on the inside.
Most of us have heard that babies can’t smile for the first few months of their lives.
This is untrue, as it turns out.
Babies can grin in utero and shortly after birth, according to study and ultrasound evidence, though it’s vital to distinguish between automatic and social smiles.
Pleasurable physical experiences, such as going asleep, resolving gas, or eating, trigger automatic smiles.
It’s common for babies to smile automatically in the first few days following birth.
Face recognition and the type of conscious satisfaction that emerges when a newborn recognises a parent, on the other hand, elicit social smiles.
The babies in these experiments smiled when they were exposed to delicious odours and flavours, as well as physical stimulation like cheek strokes. It could be more than gas gushing the next time you hug a giggling infant!
People nowadays, however, forget tosmile and use this free tool—laughter is the finest treatment. People forget to laugh and grin in today’s fast-paced digital world where every second matters.
However, by understanding the facts about smile and the effects it has on your body and mind, we may make significant improvements in our lives.
The unfortunate aspect is that God has given us a perfectly free instrument in the form of a smile. We are free to use it whenever we choose.
Where we are lagging behind to use this most recognizable facial expression ?
But after knowing some unknown facts about smile we are about to learn, I am sure, you are going to use this free stuff deliberately to make your day.
# Smiling Is A Universal Expression Of Joy
Smiling is one of the few human gestures that can be understood by people from all over the world. Smiling is universally acknowledged as a worldwide sign of kindness, happiness and good disposition, regardless of where you are on the planet.
# It’s contagious to smile.
Have you ever been in the presence of someone who seemed to be always smiling? It’s likely that you, too, found yourself smiling. This is due to the fact that smiling is extremely contagious. According to research, joyful people have an impact on those around them, providing a boost of good energy, smiles, and laughing. So, the next time you’re down, go find your happiest friend and start smiling, leaving aside any reason to smile. Just smile.
# Your immune system is boosted when you smile.
Do you think you’re getting a cold? Then turn to comedians, because laughing and smiling are truly fantastic medicine! Smiling and laughing both send out signals to our stress hormones that we’re feeling better. Reducing stress boosts our ability to create white blood cells, the immune system’s antibody worker bees!
# Smiling Reduces Stress Significantly
Do you feel overworked and stressed? Make an effort to smile. Smiling has been shown in recent studies to lower stress and improve our ability to deal with difficult situations. This is due to the fact that smiling increases endorphin production and pushes us to breathe deeply, resulting in a calmer attitude and better coping abilities.
# Longevity may be linked to smiling.
The study of the players’ grins on baseball cards from the 1952 Major League Baseball season would be incomplete without mentioning the study of the players’ smiles on baseball cards from the 1952 Major League Baseball season.
Each player’s grin intensity was categorised, ranging from no smile to a half smile to a Duchenne smile (a full, genuine smile that involves the eyes).
Players who did not smile lived an average of 72.9 years, those who smiled somewhat lived an average of 75 years, and those who smiled fully lived an average of 79.9 years!
# A simple smile can brighten your day.
Take a smile break if you’re having a particularly difficult day. Read an essay by a humorist like Khuswant singh or a youtube video of stand up comedian Kunal Kamra, video chat with a pal, or watch an episode or two of your favourite sitcom. You may not be in a good mood when you wake up, but a few minutes of smiling or laughing can change your entire day!
Smiling, even if it’s a little forced, triggers the release of endorphins in our brain. Endorphins are the chemicals that cause pleasure and even euphoria. What starts as a small grin could turn into an entire day of joy!
# Smiling is beneficial to your heart’s health.
Smiling not only relieves stress, but it also reduces blood pressure! Many of the same chemicals and neurotransmitters that drive your stress levels to rise also raise your blood pressure, putting your heart under strain.
You could possibly lengthen your life by providing some relief to your heart if you find reasons to smile every day!
#It has the ability to reduce blood pressure.
Your body releases cortisol and endorphins when you smile, which can help decrease blood pressure and relax your heart rate.
Even a phoney smile will suffice in the studies that verify this.
Start with one of the basic workouts that is smile to improve your cardiovascular health.
# A smile can help you feel better from Pain
There’s a reason why when we’re in excruciating pain, we tend to grimace. A forced smile, according to scientists, can help us feel better and possibly boost our endurance. In one study, participants were asked to smile while receiving a shot at the doctor’s office, while others were asked to relax their faces.
They discovered that people who smiled experienced up to 40% less pain than those who did not.
#It makes you appear approachable.
Do you spend a lot of time on the phone at work?
Even if you’re just talking to a friend on the phone, consider smiling as you speak.
Listeners can genuinely “hear” a smile over the phone, according to research, and it doesn’t end there.
They can even tell what kind of smile you’re wearing!
This is one of the numerous types of indications that your voice provides to help the person on the other end of the line understand what you’re saying.
#It has the potential to provide you with a great deal of excitement.
Would a cash prize of $25,000 make your heart skip a beat?
According to studies, smiling stimulates the brain just as much as receiving a large sum of money.
It also provides the same level of excitement and mood-lifting benefits as 2,000 chocolate bars!
Consider how much your beautiful whites are truly worth the next time you flash them.
Do you think the smile will finish here?Its a life long journey till we die.
World Smile Day, to take it a step further, is observed all across the world.
Do you think you can still avoid World Smile Day, the most important ingredient of which is a smile, after learning all about how a simple smile may help you live a wonderful life?
The world commemorates World Smile Day every year on the first Friday in October. Harvey Ball, a business artisan from Worcester, Massachusetts, conceived and launched the idea for World Smile Day. He is credited with creating the Smiley Face in 1963.
The first World Smile Day was conducted in 1999, and it has remained an annual tradition since then.
A smile, whether it’s one you receive or one you share, can sometimes be all it takes to brighten someone’s day.
The smiley face has become one of the most well-known symbols in the world throughout the years.
It’s so well-known that we’re sure you can see it just by uttering “smiley face.” A basic curve for a genuine and pure smile and a recognised yellow circle with black dots for eyes.
Yellow is utilised as the colour of the smiley face since it is a symbol of happiness, as you may know.
Little acts of kindness can brighten someone’s day who has otherwise had a bad day, and they can influence everything that happens after that.
A Smile invites you to take action to bring a few more smiles into the world, whether it’s just a simple remark, a cheerful welcome, or a small present to improve their day.
So?
We have a good sense of humour.
Continue to smile for practise.
Look for methods to make someone’s day a little brighter. Thank your coworkers, your friends, your family members for their work ethic and compliment their attire. Follow your instincts to smile and make a positive difference in any tiny way you can.
You’d be amazed how much a simple smile may mean to someone, and it could also bounce back to make your day!
-End-
For other interesting blog:
Why books so important to change your life
[…] Make a goal to perform one random act of kindness today, even if it’s only a simple smile. […]
[…] Take a few deep breaths, smile, and say aloud or silently to yourself, “I’m joyful, strong, and confident.” […]
[…] Laughter is certainly the best medicine, and those with a strong sense of humour know how to use it. […]