- Let It Be! Smile!
- Practicing the Art of Smiling
- A Healthy Smile Is a Happy Smile
- Common Reasons for Smiling All Day
- Confidently Smiling Through Life
The first thing people see when they meet you is usually a smile- so it’s important to love yours. Finding confidence in your smile is important for everyone.
Phyllis Diller once said, ‘A smile is a curve that sets everything straight.’ That is so true of life! It is the first thing you notice on someone. How many times have you been down in the dumps, and that one perfect smile immediately lightens the load and puts your day right!
A smile is a powerful gift we all possess! As with a gift, we share it with others. It makes everyone feel welcome and happy to be in your presence. A smile can influence feelings in yourself and others, such as exuding confidence, happiness, love, and reassurance.
Whatever meaning is behind our smile, it’s always a positive thing, and the state of our wellbeing is an indirect benefit from this.
But how does a smile benefit you? Follow some guidelines below and find the confidence in your smile.
Let It Be! Smile!
Our faces have 42 muscles, with most of them controlled by facial nerves. Did you know that it takes 42 muscles to work a frown but only 17 of them to smile?
A majority of people believe that smiling is an automatic reaction to things that cause them joy or make them laugh. While it is true that we smile when we are happy; what so many people seem to miss is that smiling is not just an involuntary response but can also be a self-induced choice.
There have been recent studies showing results that a sincere smile is generally attractive for others around us. And, the actual act of smiling can indeed upscale the mood of those around you.
The act of smiling, whether as a result of pure joy or otherwise, can have short and long-term benefits to one’s well being.
There are those people who smile naturally as if it is the most natural thing to do. They do it without effort. Once you realize your smiles can make you more attractive and friendlier, you will smile more often and feel more confident to do so!
Practicing the Art of Smiling
Again, for people where smiling comes naturally, this may seem like a stupid idea. It isn’t difficult. Like anything else, it’s a matter of practicing, and on the plus side, while you force yourself to practice smiling, you are stimulating the brain to make you happier every time you crack a smile.
Remember, practice makes perfect, so keep smiling.
A Healthy Smile Is a Happy Smile
Various factors can make you hold back your smile, such as oral hygiene. Lousy breath, broken teeth, skew teeth, and rotten teeth can all contribute to a straight face. That definitely could put a downer on your confidence.
Those are some of the issues everyone is very conscious of; that is when regular visits to your dentist are imperative. A dentist will help you with your oral hygiene routine and place a treatment plan in place for a perfect smile every time.
Your dentist may steer you to an orthodontist should you need teeth straightening treatment. However, you can also get teeth straightening at home including clear braces or invisible aligners.
By wearing these invisible braces while you go through your teeth straightening treatment, you can have the confidence to smile all day!
Of course, you will help yourself by making an oral hygiene routine. Brush your teeth and floss regularly, and use fluoride products.
When your teeth are healthy, you will feel more attractive at the end of the day, and your smiling confidence will return!
Common Reasons for Smiling All Day
Smile, you are on Candid Camera! Even when the cameras are not rolling, you should be smiling more often. Why? The act of smiling immediately uplifts your mood as your body is inundated with happy inducing chemicals.
In short, our brain sends a signal to our face to smile, and we send a signal back to the brain to say it feels good, the brain listens and tells us to smile, and so on.
1. Release Stress by Smiling
Stress can infiltrate our entire body and is the first thing to show on our faces. A study at the University of Kansas published findings that show that smiling reduces the body’s response to stress and lowers your heart rate in stressful situations.
That being said, smiling is not a cure for all stress, but it may go a long way to relieve short-term stress as in dealing with demanding customers, impatient people, and hostile people. Next time, as they say in the classics, ‘grin and bear it’!
2. Smiling Makes Us Beautiful
Unlike most species, humans bare their teeth not as signs of aggression but as a friendly gesture. Smiling is also an intrinsic human behavior.
A study published in October 2019 shows how the importance of dental health correlates to how people perceive your smile as attractive.
You no doubt have heard the saying, ‘put on your happy face, and smile’? In two different experiments, researchers in Switzerland observed how attractiveness and smiling interacted with each other. They came to the conclusion that the more smiley a face is, the more attractive the person is perceived to be.
3. Smiling Puts Us in a Better Mood
Try smiling next time you are feeling down; go on, try it!
Researchers used statistic studies, known as a meta-analysis, to study over 11,000 people from all over the world. Their results found that cracking a smile makes people feel happier and that scowling and frowning can put them in a bad mood.
These findings provide clues that there is an interaction between the mind and body to show our emotions in our physical being. There is still a lot to learn on this subject, but it definitely showed us how emotions work.
Smiling uses your face’s muscles in an upward movement so that your mood will change to being happy. A simple smile will not only trigger the release of neural communication chemicals but also enhance the mood chemicals, like dopamine and serotonin.
Smiling is a natural anti-depressant. Although it is clear that a smile is not the only road to happiness it is the first step on that journey.
4. Smiling Is Contagious
Smiles are infectious and contagious. Please pass it on!
How many times have you walked past someone smiling, and you walk on and find yourself smiling too? How many smiles were regarded as having the power to brighten up the room?
How many smiles have been described as having the power to lighten up the room? While it is undoubtedly a beautiful sentiment, it carries a hint of truth. The act of smiling and the softening of the facial muscles have a powerful effect on everyone’s emotional state. And, it certainly can change the moods of others and lighten the atmosphere of a room.
There is a part of your brain responsible for muscle reaction, which controls our facial expressions. The University of Wisconsin did a study on it and how one person can mimic another’s emotion through sensorimotor simulation in our brains without us realizing it.
Yes, science has proved that smiles are indeed contagious! Mother Theresa, herself has said, ‘we shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.’.
5. Smile Your Way to a Better Immune System
If you are happy and relaxed, it increases the immune system response. Happiness and a smile have been shown to increase infection-fighting antibody levels in our bodies and also to increase immune cell levels.
Your smile triggers dopamine release into your body, which activates some parts of our immune system. As dopamine levels increase, the number of antibodies and natural killer cells in the blood also increases.
The act of smiling makes the human immune system work better. When you relax and smile, your body releases certain neurotransmitters, and your immune system improves. Therefore, to protect our bodies and our wellbeing, it is essential to be happy.
6. Lower Your Blood Pressure With A Smile
By smiling and laughing more you can boost your heart health and lower your blood pressure. How? The College of Family Physicians published an article explaining this.
This study shows that smiling and laughing contribute to a rise in the heart rate, and oxygen consumption, followed by a period of relaxed muscles and a slowing heart rate and lowering of blood pressure. Even a small quantity significantly reduces someone’s risk of heart disease.
7. Smiling Gives You A Good Feeling
Your brain, when you smile, releases neuropeptides that help combat stress. Other neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins are also released.
Altogether these neurotransmitters contribute to a complete feel good. They are natural chemical elements that ensure your change to a good mood, relaxation of the body, and physical pain reduction.
‘Smiling is a natural drug.’!
8. Keep smiling and stay young
Smiling does not only make you attractive but it can keep you young too. So go ahead and smile. It may be Mother Nature’s recipe for keeping young.
You stretch your facial tissues and muscles unwittingly as you smile. A smile pulls up the loose skin cells and thus is a facial workout that helps keep the skin’s elasticity.
Our subconscious connects young people and smiling. Therefore, it goes without saying that a person who smiles a lot will appear more youthful than their actual age.
Exercise that face and smile! You will feel better and look younger!
9. Smiling Success
In today’s busy world we are pressured and compete in business to be the most successful. We all look for that one thing that will make us happier at work. Well, there is a ‘magic potion’ per se, and it has been around since the beginning of time, it’s called a smile.
Trust is what business relationships are built on. A study by K. Schmidt of the University of Pittsburgh says, ‘Various positive social qualities, including credibility, are related to the facial attractiveness. Variations in smiles were also associated with positive judgments in trustworthiness.
A facial appeal is associated with a variety of positive social characteristics, including trustworthiness. If you smile more, it is more likely that people will perceive you as trustworthy.
When we smile, we give the perception of being more courteous and agreeable, and more professional.
So smile your way up the corporate ladder!
Confidently Smiling Through Life
Either way, whether you smile or not plays a significant role in your wellbeing, physically and mentally. However, when you smile, you feel happiness, peacefulness, relaxed, and friendly, thereby getting more out of life.
Basically, there is a bigger chance of getting something out of someone when you ask by smiling. You do not lose anything by giving a smile, yet you gain a lot when you give one!
Everyone wants to show off a beautiful smile. But, if you don’t have the confidence and your self-esteem is low, your emotional wellbeing is adversely affected.
For a lot of people, there are many reasons for not smiling. From crooked, chipped, and stained teeth, embarrassing gaps, and even bad breath. All these conditions should be treated to give people a chance to live life to the fullest.
If you’re tired of hiding your smile because of your imperfect teeth being the cause of holding you back, why not head on over to our website. Are you looking to have your teeth straightened without the use of braces? Our clear aligners are your most affordable option.
Don’t delay brighten up your smile, and contact us today for your free assessment!
