Your Super Power: Smiling

The simple smile is one of the most underrated, transforming behaviors in the world. It costs nothing, but it can make such a big difference in the quality of one’s life — physically and emotionally. I know from personal experience the unexpected benefits of a simple smile.

7 Effective Benefits of the Simple Smile

1. Reduces stress levels: Smiling is one of the simplest and most effective ways. A smile sends a message to your brain that everything is okay. The muscles in your face relax, and you actually begin to feel better quickly.

2. Boosts Immune system: Smiles trigger the release of dopamine which studies have indicated activate areas of our immune systems and have positive affects on our bodies ability to fight infections. According to a WebMD study, laughter, which usually begins with a smile, boosts immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies, improving your resistance to illnesses.

3. Offers Stress Relief: Although long-term causes for stress logically involve further remedies, smiling has been well-established as an effective means for immediate relief from causes of the moment.

4. Affects The Environment: One way to feel better yourself is to help create a positive atmosphere around you. Smiling is proven to be highly contagious. You’ll find that most of those around you can’t help but smile themselves. You smile…they smile…you smile…they smile! The whole atmosphere feels lighter and refreshing.

5. Lowers Blood Pressure: More research is needed to discover the reasons why smiling (and laughing) helps lower blood pressure. However, there is significant enough evidence to believe smiling and laughing can be considered as causes.

6. Staying Positive: Try this experiment. Put a smile on your lips and try to keep your face in the smile position while introducing a stressful, depressing thought. Hard isn’t it? Now reverse the experiment. Frown while you think of something stressful. Now, count to three and imagine something fun, happy, or pleasant. Can’t hold the frown can you? The lesson is self-explanatory, isn’t it? The way you feel corresponds to the position of your lips, doesn’t it?

7. Better Negotiating: This benefit is especially important if negotiating is a vital piece of your job. When a person genuinely smiles, they project the feeling that they are kind, and trustworthy. Even if negotiating isn’t one’s profession, we all ‘negotiate’ those things we desire and believe are important.

A Bonus Benefit for Good Measure

There are many more items I could add like how smiling clearly helps facilitate the learning process. A smile is a trigger that helps the mind accept and retain new information. In the same way, it's been scientifically established that attempting to learn while frowning frustrates the process.

So, if you want to make it easier and more fun to learn...smile as you do.

5 Ways to Help You Grow Your Smile

1. Play a song that’s one of your favorites. When our brain registers a pleasurable experience, it releases dopamine, which is sometimes called the “pleasure hormone.” Dopamine creates feelings of happiness and well-being. That’s why people who listen to their favorite songs over and over again tend to feel euphoric — they’re getting a rush of dopamine each time.

2. Remember stories that have made you feel grateful and happy. The root idea behind the word remember means to ‘reenact.’ When you remember a person or event, you are reenacting it in your imagination which gives your mind and body the feeling that it’s currently happening. Positive remembrances help your whole body to smile.

3. Fast from complaining. Start with a period of 24 hours. The habit of continually finding fault with things you don’t like, robs you of your joy, peace, and your smile, itself. Habitual bitch and moaning, is seriously detrimental for your health both physically and emotionally.

4. Spend time with people who smile a lot. You’ll find it rubs off. As already mentioned, smiling is powerfully infectious. It’s unusual to smile at a person and not have them smile back. Living life as “a smiler” creates a very pleasing environment to live in — for yourself and others.

5. Make an “I’m Thankful For” list. You can do this in a journal, a notebook, or on your phone. Rehearse and add to it on a daily basis. Being thankful doesn’t just happen. It has to be chosen and created. The more thankful you become, the more you’ll smile. The more you smile, the more thankful you’ll become. It’s and incredibly powerful, self-perpetuating cycle.

In Conclusion

Smiling has been shown to place an integral role in our lives with amazing health benefits, as well as improve our emotional state, and even help us build better relationships. Start thinking about smiles not just as a way to show happiness but as an essential part of your overall well-being. Let’s all make it a point to smile more often and see how much difference it can make in our lives.