If you think smiling is purely an emotional expression, you’re wrong. It turns out that smiling has profound effects on the body and mind, helping you avoid disease, live longer and improve your mood.
Here are some of there reasons that you should smile more:
It Affects Everyone Around You
Smiling is a contagious activity. If you smile at someone, it is almost certain that they will smile right back at you.
If you don’t feel confident about showing off your smile, you can use orthodontic services to correct it. The investment is worthwhile because once you feel confident about smiling, it affects everyone around you.
It Relieves Stress
Stress is a major cause of ill health in the modern world. Elevated stress hormones, such as cortisol, can actually lead to disease over time, causing the body to break down.
Fortunately, smiling reduces stress. Just the act of raising your cheek muscles causes the release of feel-good hormones in the brain, changing your mood and internal chemistry.
It Improves Your Mood
Speaking of which, smiling is a wonderful way to get yourself out of a funk. If you feel like the world is on top of you and there’s nothing you can do, something as simple as smiling can make it all seem okay again.
Smiling releases neuropeptides. These are chemicals that improve how your brain functions and may even improve how it performs.
It Improves Your Immune System
These days, we need to keep our immune systems in as good a condition as possible. Smiling may actually help achieve this. When you smile, it releases neurotransmitters that change how the immune system functions. Immunity tends to work best when you feel relaxed. So if you have an infection, smiling may actually make it better.
It Reduces Blood Pressure
Our blood pressure relates intimately to the tension that we feel in our minds. If we are stressed, then blood pressure naturally goes up. If we aren’t stressed, then it naturally falls.
Smiling, it has been shown, helps to lower heart rate and causes the walls of the blood vessels to relax. This process, in turn, reduces blood pressure and can change how you feel.
It Reduces Pain
Smiling also reduces pain. The combination of endorphins and other natural painkillers make people feel good from head to toe. You may notice that if you have chronic pain and then you laugh at something for a while, you stop noticing the pain. Smiling may also reduce swelling in the body by cutting inflammation, also reducing the pain that people experience.
It Makes You Live Longer
Smiling more often may also make you live longer. People who are excited about life and all the possibilities that it offers tend to live much longer than those who are depressed. Happiness actually increases lifespan, while misery shortens it.
Researchers believe that this may happen through a variety of mechanisms. Smiling, for instance, may encourage longer telomeres, allowing cells to divide successfully more often. It can also help people maintain a positive mood so that they are more likely to stick with healthy behaviors.