Smiling comes naturally to us when something sparks our joy. Someone tells a funny joke, compliments our hair, or smiles at us from across the room — we can’t help but smile back. While smiling is mostly an involuntary, intrinsic human behavior that our body does naturally when we’re feeling joy, it also can become a conscious practice to boost our mood. Some may be wary of “forced smiles”, but the act of moving these muscles actually sends a message to our brain that we are happy. Let’s explore some more benefits of smiling!
Benefits of Smiling
It Improves Your Mood
While it may feel funny at first to force a smile, you may find that it enhances your mood when you do. This is because smiling triggers the production of mood-boosting neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin. When you’re feeling a bit gloomy, try to trick your brain with a smile and you may find that it brightens your day.
It Reduces Stress
Sometimes we can get so bogged down about the little things in life. We overthink, worry about the minutia, and create larger than life stories in our head. This increases our stress overall, preventing us from living a happy, healthy life. Smiling and making light of stressful situations can actually help bring us clarity and reduce our stress. Even if you don’t feel like smiling, try forcing one and you might find that the thing you were most stressed about, now seems so small.
It Lowers Your Blood Pressure
Did you know one of the benefits of smiling affects your blood pressure? As a result of reducing stress, smiling also lowers your blood pressure. Because you’re less stressed and sad, your blood pressure remains at a normal level.
Smiling Boosts Your Immune System
A healthy immune system is vital to living a healthy life. When you’re stressed or depressed, your immune system is weak and unable to function properly. Because smiling releases mood-boosting neurotransmitters, it actually makes you more relaxed and therefore helps to boost your immune system.
Smiling Gives You Hope
Smiling naturally boosts your ability to see the bright side of things. When dopamine and serotonin are released in the brain from smiling, it tells your brain it’s happy. Even if you’re going through a hard time, smiling and laughing can help you see the positive side of a situation.
Smiling is Attractive
As humans, we are actually more physically attracted to those who smile. Many studies have been conducted in this manner and have found that even if someone is less attractive to us, they are more attractive if they’re smiling. On the contrary, those who tend to frown more are actually far less attractive to us. Instead, these people tend to push us away. Smiling presents a welcoming mood and friendly personality.
It’s Contagious
As mentioned earlier, there’s a part of our brain that controls our facial expressions and when we see others smiling, it’s activated to smile too. In this way, you could say that smiles are contagious! So while smiling can help boost your mood, it can also improve the mood of those around you. Perhaps one of the best benefits of smiling is its ability to be shared! Why not give the gift of smiling?
Believe it or not, many people smile less because they’re embarrassed about their smile or teeth. Good oral hygiene can really improve your smile and increase your confidence overall. Consequently, this causes you to smile more and thus boost your mood, reduce stress, improve the mood of those around you, and make you more attractive. If you’re shy about your smile because of the current dental hygiene state of your mouth, take charge of your life by booking an appointment with your dentist in Glendora today. You’ll be onto a new, confident life in no time!
