You must have heard that laughter is the best medicine. Hence, you should always keep smiling to live a healthier life.
When we laugh and smile, we tend to feel happy. In fact, even faking a smile can slightly make your mood happier.
Also, it makes you live longer and improves your health by reducing stress.
If you want to know the numerous benefits of smiling, then keep reading this article to know more. So let’s begin by first smiling widely!
The Advantages of Keep Smiling on Mood and Stress
Improvement in Mood
Now that you smiled widely before embarking on a learning journey to know about smiling, did you feel a slight change in your mood?
Well, we are sure it did. The act of smiling and movement of muscles helps to affect your emotional state by activating pathways in the brain and releasing neurotransmitters like endorphins.
Therefore, your brain thinks that you are in a happy state and you also think positively.
Endorphins make you realize that you are happy and also helps to reduce your stress levels.
This works even with a fake smile. The brain does not figure out whether a smile is real or fake, as it only recognizes the facial muscle movement.
Therefore, you can fake a smile and your brain will not know but keep making you happier by the release of endorphins by the process of the facial feedback hypothesis.
Reduction in Stress
Similarly, the release of endorphins and other neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin helps to decrease stress levels.
Whenever you are stressed, you will find stress shows up on your face. You will look worn down as tired.
However, if you wear a smile then it can immediately reduce the look of stress on your face.
But endorphins can also reduce the stress hormone behind the scenes. The stress hormone cortisol increases when you feel stressed.
Hence, you feel more anxious and have an uncomfortable feeling. So, smiling endorphins help reduce the levels of cortisol.
Hence, whenever you encounter a stressful situation, smile widely. You will notice a drop in your stress levels and you will be slightly relieved.
In fact, people who smile in stressful situations, have much lower heart rates than those who do not.
So, protect your heart health and stress levels by smiling more.
Health Benefits
Laughing is basically an exercise for the body and so is smiling. It helps to stretch the muscles and expand the lungs to result in homeostasis.
This helps replenish the oxygen levels in the lungs and also exercises the body.
Moreover, smiling lowers heart rate as it decreases stress levels and cortisol by releasing endorphins.
Though laughter also helps to decrease the blood pressure and bring it to normal levels.
Your heart rate initially increases but after muscle relaxation it goes down.
Therefore laughter and smiling help to control your heart rate well and prevent heart disease.
Do you know that smiling can reduce your physical pain? It may seem unbelievable but it actually does.
While smiling releases endorphins, serotonin and dopamine, it also releases pain killers that help alleviate any pain.
These all combine to reduce any body aches and also make your body feel good overall. Hence, whenever you are sick with pain, try smiling more often.
Also, the act of smiling stimulates the release of antibodies that fight bacteria and infection, as well as grows the number of immune cells.
Therefore, it enhances your entire immune function and you feel relaxed. The release of the endorphins helps to fight the illness better.
So, next time you feel the flu coming, make sure to smile to the fullest to prepare your body to fight an infection beforehand.
Also, smiling lengthens your life span. The more you smile, the happier you are. This helps improve your mood and subsequently lifestyle. Hence, you tend to live longer if you genuinely smile more.
While there is less research on this, it does seem that happiness, healthy life and smiling are correlated. Therefore smile to your heart’s content if you want to live a longer life.
Social And Emotional Wellbeing
If you are going through some emotional distress then you should try smiling.
A smile changes your thought process from negative to positive. You cannot think of a negative thought while smiling. Try it for yourself!
Hence, the act of smiling sends this signal across your brain and whole body that everything is fine and you are happy even if for a split second.
A good laugh also helps to release bottled-up emotions and relaxes you. This is why you feel better around the people you like.
Also smiling helps to make you look more attractive and younger than you are.
We like expressions like smiles and laughter while frowning and grimacing gets negative attention only.
In fact, a smile makes you appear much younger in the sense that the expression subtracts years from your face.
The muscles help to lift your face giving you a natural facelift and enhance your good features.
Also when you smile more people tend to think that you are more likable and approachable.
Hence if it is easy to like you then it is also probably easier to build and maintain relationships with you.
If you are approachable in work settings then it becomes much easier to progress forward in your life.
People get leadership positions because they are approachable and tend to smile often leaving a positive impression on others.
Moreover, it can help you to ace that interview signaling that you have a relaxed personality. It can also make interaction with you easier.
Hence smiling helps you to progress in your professional settings and also makes you look interactive, approachable and likable.
Though, not many people smile that often and there are ways by which you can choose to smile more.
What are those? Find them below!
How To Keep Smiling More?
It may seem very easy to smile and laugh but some people generally do not smile as often as others.
The reasons can be their emotional state, past traumas, or even the cultures they were brought up in.
If you grow up in cultures and families that are not inclined to smile more often then you will adapt to that too.
Also, if you are depressed, anxious or sad because of any past traumas or mental health problems then you are less likely to smile at others.
However, you can improve by simply incorporating a few things into your life such as:
Smile and laugh even if you do not feel like it. A fake smile also has an effect on your well-being and general state of happiness.
Hence, if you fake a smile several times, you will find yourself naturally smiling and laughing more often too. You adapt to it and smile even when you don’t know it.
Also, switch the channels and watch lighter-hearted stuff. For instance, stop watching the news or tv shows that are likely to make you sad.
Instead, watch comedy movies, feel-good dramas and fun game shows to lighten up your mood.
The negativity in news and other serious entertainment can bring down our mood and make smiling even tougher.
Therefore, use entertainment as a distraction to help you get out of your current mode and difficult to laugh and smile a little.
Surround yourself with people you like. Visit friends and family more often to share nostalgic thoughts. Make new friends that are positive and optimistic. Their positivity will help you become happier too.
Also, engage in activities that make you smile and you are happy to do. Slowly you will find yourself smiling more often and brightly.
How To Treat Dental Health Problems
Another reason to avoid smiling is the condition of your teeth.
Are you hiding your smile because of the way your teeth look?
Your teeth could be yellow, discolored, crooked, misaligned and missing.
This could definitely prevent you from smiling to the fullest.
Though, there are solutions to all of these problems.
Braces and aligners can help straighten your teeth. They can give you the perfect smile either it be lingual braces or Invisalign.
In about a period of one year or two, braces and aligners can straighten your crooked, misaligned, overbite, underbite, crossbite and buck teeth.
Follow up with retainers for about a year to maintain their positions and smile wholeheartedly.
In other cases, if you have missing teeth then dental bridges and implants can help you cover that up.
A dental bridge can work for a single missing tooth whereas an implant can work on more than one missing teeth. Add a crown on the implant, in the missing place and you will have your perfect smile back.
If yellow teeth and stains keep you from smiling then, go for a Dental Zoom Whitening session.
You will see significant changes in only one session and you will leave the dentist’s office smiling widely.
You can also try home remedies but they will have less efficacy and slower results.
So go to your dentist and get these treatments so that you can smile to your fullest.
Conclusion
You need to keep smiling to live a healthy life.
Smiling not only impacts your health but also your emotional state and social well-being.
Hence, keep building relationships on your perfect smile and stay happy.
