The Happy You #1 - Brighten Up Your World, One Smile at a Time

Hey everyone,

Today I want to talk to you about how you can brighten up the world one smile at a time! If you follow this advice, I can guarantee that you will immediately notice a difference in the quality of your life – all the while making other people's day better.

This being my first post outside of my introduction, I was having quite a hard time picking from the long list of topics I am planning to write about. I decided to let the day go by and let inspiration come naturally, and sure enough it didn't take long to find my answer.

I was at a popular coffee chain this morning, trying to pay for my morning brew when the payment processing system went down. As the barista was trying to resolve the issue she became stressed out, mostly avoiding making eye contact with me and apologizing constantly. It obviously wasn't an ideal situation for me, but when she finally hesitantly made eye contact with me I made a conscious effort to give her my best smile. The result was amazing, the panicked look on her face went away instantly and instead turned into a smile. Shortly after I managed to pay, and we both went our own ways feeling good about it all: me because I was able to make her day a little bit better, and her because everything got nicely resolved.

This is a pretty mundane example, a seemingly unimportant event in the big scheme of things, but it's really important to keep in mind that the nature (positive or negative) of an interaction is often replicated exponentially. What I mean by that is that if two people leave an interaction feeling good, chances are that their next interactions will also be of a positive nature. That multiplies the good vibes to 4 people and if they then each have a positive impact on someone else's day that will be 8 people positively impacted, and so on. The same is definitely true of negative interactions. In the case of my example with the barista, it's easy to imagine that she went on to serve the next customer more pleasantly than if I had lost my patience and been rude to her, which in turn affects that customer's morning.

Compared to the amount of small interpersonal interactions taking place everyday, smiles are sadly in short supply. Think of how many times a day you come in contact with another human being, even through something so simple as someone holding a door for you. Every one of these instances is an opportunity to smile at someone! To some of you this may sound obvious, or stupid, but if like me you have ever worked in retail you will know that not many people take the time to offer a smile or even be pleasant...at all.

The truth is, we are all in a hurry and we all wish we didn't have to go to work; no-one is unique in that regard, however much we would like to think we are at times. It's important to realize that the quality of our human interactions are pretty much the only thing that can really affect our perception of the world and turn an ordinary day into an extraordinary one.

From an altruistic perspective, as the picture above states, you really cannot underestimate the value of a smile. The person you encounter could have just had their heart broken, lost their job or a loved one; you get the picture. Everyday some of us have to face unpleasant situations, and sometimes when we least expect it. Receiving an unexpected smile can really brighten up one's day in these situations. Be that person who offers a smile, who gives hope when situations feel hopeless, a ray of happiness through the sadness. You have the power to change lives with your smile, and you will only feel better for it in return.

You may have read this post so far thinking, "How am I supposed to smile at someone when I don't feel a genuine reason to smile, they will know it's not a real smile." Your smiles may feel forced in the beginning (see Sheldon above), but you really do not have to worry because after a while smiling will just become a part of who you are. There is also the strong chance that people will smile back at you, and that this in turn will make your own smile genuine and heartfelt, even if it felt forced to begin with. That is truly a beautiful thing. The reason this chain of events happens is due to something called mirror neurons. Here is an excerpt from this interview with Marco Iacoboni, a neuroscientist at UCLA known for his work on mirror neurons:

"The way mirror neurons likely let us understand others is by providing some kind of inner imitation of the actions of other people, which in turn leads us to “simulate” the intentions and emotions associated with those actions. When I see you smiling, my mirror neurons for smiling fire up, too, initiating a cascade of neural activity that evokes the feeling we typically associate with a smile. I don’t need to make any inference on what you are feeling, I experience immediately and effortlessly (in a milder form, of course) what you are experiencing."

I've spent most of this post discussing the positive effect your smiles will have on other people, and how this can lead to a chain reaction which will improve the world in which we live. One more thing that I would like to touch on is the health benefits that come from smiling.

In a study from 2012 conducted for the journal Psychological Science, two psychological scientists had participants undertake stressful tasks while some of them were either instructed to smile or physically made to have straight faces, partial smiles, or Duchenne smiles. The researchers came to the conclusion that smiling actually influences our physical well being; compared with participants who did not smile, those who did exhibited lower stress levels and had lower heart rates. That was true even for those participants who were physically forced into smiling. To read more, check out this link.

In another study, researchers looked at pictures of MLB players from the 1952 season and compared the longevity of the players who had died as of June 2009 with the degree to which a player smiled in the photograph. Players who did not smile lived for 72 years on average; those with partial smiles lived for 75 years on average; and those with Duchenne smiles (genuine smiles, those that reach the eyes) lived for 80 years on average. This might reflect each players overall outlook on life more than merely whether or not they felt like smiling for the picture, but incorporating more smiles in your daily life and improving the quality of your interpersonal interactions will definitely not hurt your longevity!

There are quite a few other studies showing the health benefits of smiling and of happiness in general, but my purpose here is not to provide an extensive list of them. If you do know of some other cool studies, please feel free to link them in the comments below.

So, what do you guys think? Do you think there is room for more smiles in our lives? Do you have personal experiences to share where you either received or gave a smile that had a positive impact on you or someone else at that particular point in time? I look forward to reading your views and experiences in the comments below.

If, like me, you would enjoy living in a world where people smile more and are nicer to each other, please feel free to upvote, comment, and most importantly resteem this post =) Together we can change the world, one smile at a time.

Enjoy today,

William

All images free of copyrights and provided by Pixabay. I added the captions myself =)