The hidden power of smiling

Day 28 / 365

“i will never understand all the good that a simple smile can accomplish“

Can you tell me how many times you smile in a day?

Children on an average smile 400 times a day. For adults, this number drops tremendously. Only about a third of us smile more than 20 times a day, and 14 percent of us smile less than 5 times.

We smile when we feel good when we are happy. But what’s surprising is that the act of smiling itself can cause us to feel happy. Charle’s Darwin, the great mind behind the theory of evolution, also wrote about this, how certain facial expressions change the emotional content of our brains. Many studies confirmed this to be true.

The benefits of smiling don’t end there. Smiling makes you look good in the eye’s of others as well. This was the subject of a study at Penn State University, where they found that people think more highly of a person when they are smiling as compared to where they are not.

Smiling is infectious. It’s physically tough to stay frowning if you are looking at someone smiling. So you won’t just be benefitting yourselves, but the people around you as well. Smiling is in many ways like a mini-superpower, so make sure you put it to good use!

This story is part of my 365 Day Project for 2019. Read about it here

Yesterday’s blog — One more reason to get a good night’s sleep