April 18, 2022

9 Reasons to Smile | The Benefits of Smiling

If you are curious about the benefits of smiling, you will be surprised to know that smiling can do wonders to your overall health! When you learn about its many health benefits, you will want to give more importance to your oral healthcare. You will want to smile more often. In this post, we’ll talk about why smiling is good for you.

1. Smiling Improves Your Mood

One of the health benefits of smiling is it immediately improves your mood. Smiling can work like a natural antidepressant. When you smile, there’s a feedback mechanism that happens, which signals your brain to release neurotransmitters such as dopamine, endorphins, and serotonin. [1] This serotonin release helps make you feel good.

Your smile does not even have to be genuine for it to work. Even a fake smile can have the same effect. This is also backed by psychology. The facial feedback hypothesis states that our facial expressions can affect our emotional experiences. [2]

2. Smiling Reduces Pain

The saying, “smile through the pain” has truth in it. Our brain releases endorphins when we smile. These endorphins help us fight off negative experiences, and can even act as natural painkillers, making us more tolerant to pain.

3. Smiling Significantly Lowers Stress Levels

An experiment showed that participants who are smiling even when they are under stress had lower heart rates than participants who didn’t smile. We also feel less anxious when the body releases our happy hormones as we smile. So, when you’re under stress, try smiling (even if you don’t feel like it!), and reap its effects.

4. Smiling Improves Your Relationships

Smiling can help you form better relationships with the people around you. When you smile, you release good energy. Smiling will not only positively affect you but will also affect the people around you. You can feel this when you’re in the presence of people who radiate positivity. When you’re with people who smile a lot, chances are that you will also smile more often. It’s contagious!

This is because of our brain’s automatic sensorimotor stimulation where we interpret other people’s expressions. We often imitate the expressions that we observe.

5. Smiling Strengthens Your Immune System

A study showed that there is a link between our emotional well-being and our immune response. Since smiling helps reduce stress and improve our mood, making us more relaxed, it also helps strengthen our immune response. A strong immune system helps us to live longer.

6. Smiling Makes You Look Younger

When you frown, you will develop more wrinkles faster. In contrast, smiling often helps make us look younger, healthier, and more attractive. In a study, researchers found that people with naturally happy and smiling faces were viewed by participants as healthier and more attractive than people who looked miserable. [3]

7. Smiling Lowers Blood Pressure

Smiling and laughing affect our physical health in a good way. It’s often said that laughter is the best medicine. There’s truth to it since laughing may help lower one’s blood pressure. After a good laugh, our heart rate decreases and so our blood pressure is lowered. When our heart is in a healthy condition, it decreases our chances of getting heart disease.

8. Smiling Invites Success

Smiling makes us look more attractive, approachable, and confident at work. People tend to trust the people who smile more often. We are viewed as more likable when we smile, so we have a better chance of forming good relationships with others. So, when you smile you are definitely inviting success into your life!

9. Smiling Boosts Productivity

In a research study from the University of Warwick, it was found that employees who are happier also work harder. Since smiling makes us feel happy, this naturally leads us to be more productive at work or in school.

Ways to Smile More Often

It is clear that the simple act of smiling can do wonders to our health. When we have good health, we improve our quality of life. Now that you know the many health benefits of smiling, here are some helpful tips that will encourage you to smile more often.

Practice smiling

Be intentional in practicing how to smile genuinely. You can do this by thinking of a fond memory such as spending time with your loved one or a friend. Thinking of good, happy memories will help you practice a genuine smile. You can even watch funny videos on the internet to help make you laugh more often.

Spend time with positive people

As much as possible, surround yourself with people who radiate positivity. Smiling and laughing is contagious. So, you are sure to smile more often when you are in the presence of smiling people.

Be aware of things that make you happy

When you are conscious of the things that make you happy, you become more aware of the things that make you smile. Whether it’s a nice cup of coffee in the morning or enjoying a good movie with friends, be mindful of things that uplift your mood.

Being aware of these things also helps us feel grateful for our blessings. In positive psychology, gratitude is associated with the experience of positive emotions. [4] Experiencing gratitude benefits us by making us more resilient, feel happier, and build better relationships with others.

Be close to nature

Like smiling, there are many studies that show being close to nature makes us feel happier. In one study, researchers found that participants who took a fifty-minute walk in a natural environment had better affective and cognitive functioning. [5] The participants had lesser anxiety and rumination, and they experienced more positive affect. Their working memory performance also increased. We are more likely to smile when we experience less anxiety and more positive emotions.

Find time to exercise

We all know that exercise has many good benefits to our health. The body releases endorphins when we exercise, making us feel good more often.

Do something good for yourself

Did you survive a long day at work? Or did you finally find time to finish the laundry? It’s okay to reward yourself after accomplishing a task no matter how small. We often take care of others and we sometimes forget to take care of ourselves. So, allow yourself to do something that will lift your spirits from time to time. You deserve it!

Do something good for others

Similarly, doing something good for others also makes us feel happier. You don’t even have to do some grand gesture. Random acts of kindness such as complimenting someone, buying a stranger a cup of coffee, or helping your co-worker with a task is already enough to make others happy. This will also make the world a better place for everyone.

Give yourself smiling cues

This may take getting used to, but try giving yourself cues that will remind you to smile. Giving yourself cues makes you more intentional. For example, you can train yourself to smile every time you turn your house’s doorknob when you get home from work. Or, it can be that you smile whenever you see someone riding a bicycle while you’re outside. You will find yourself smiling more often when you encounter your cues throughout the day.

Keep a smiling journal

Another way of being more intentional with how you smile is to keep a journal to list everything that made you smile during the day. In this way, you will be more aware of things that bring out a genuine smile in you.

It might be that playing with your dog made you smile, or perhaps a stranger smiled at you on your way to work that made you smile back. Whatever it is, list them down so you can repeat these things or pay it forward.

Visit your dentist

It is unfortunate that some people smile less because they feel embarrassed with their teeth. Your teeth should not hinder your smile. That’s why it’s important to go to your dentist regularly. Aside from checkups, there are many cosmetic procedures available if you would like to improve the appearance of your teeth.

At Sage Dental and Spa, we aim to provide the highest quality cosmetic dentistry services to our patients in Wall Township. Contact us to know what options are the best for you!

A Dentist for your smile in Wall Township

Good teeth contribute to a beautiful smile. If you are interested in smiling more, visit Dr. Avi Israeli of Sage Dental and Spa in Wall, NJ.

Dr. Israeli is loved by his patients for providing the best cosmetic dentistry in Wall. Our clinic also offers the best rates for single implants and multiple implants.

Contact us online or call us by phone to book your consultation!