Last Updated on April 13, 2023 by Mike Robinson
The benefits of smiling are both physical and mental and can occur at any time or any place. A smile is a communicative facial gesture that raises the ends of the mouth slightly as if you were laughing but not making noise.
With a smile, you can show and share a lot of different feelings and emotions, including:
- Joy and happiness
- pleasure and satisfaction
- well-being, trust
- gratitude
- willingness to help others.
According to the Spanish philosopher and pedagogue José Antonio Marina, the benefits of smiling include that “the smile is an expressive sign of well-being that fosters sociability and favors communication between people. This gesture kindly welcomes the other person and shows a willingness to communicate.
Different Types of Smiles
There are many different kinds of smiles. Here are six of the most common ones:
- Genuine smile
- Fake smile
- Cruel smile
- Mocking smile
- The scared smile
- The sad smile
How many smiles can you identify in yourself and others? According to psychologist Paul Ekman, an expert in the study of emotions and facial expressions, 18 different types of smiles come from the combination of 15 facial muscles.
Throughout this article, I will refer to the “genuine smile,” also called the “Duchenne smile,” which appears on your face spontaneously, sincerely, and naturally. Of all the smiles, this is the most powerful.
The difference between a genuine smile and a fake one is that a genuine smile raises the corners of the mouth and the cheeks. This creates the famous “crow’s feet.” While a fake smile only moves the muscles in the mouth. This is how you can tell if someone is pleased to see you or just pretending.
Smiling: The Global Bond
The smile is a basic human expression shared by all cultures and societies. In other words, it is a universal gesture that everyone uses to show the same things: joy, happiness, satisfaction, enjoyment, and well-being.
Paul Ekman helped make this discovery possible by showing that there were African tribes that smiled even though they had never met anyone from the West. They smiled for the same reasons as the rest of the world.
We know fetuses smile while still in the womb because of new 3D technology. This behavior continues after birth, especially when they sleep and smile more. It is also known that babies who are born blind smile when they hear the voices of other people. This information shows that the ability to smile is instinctive.
6 Health Benefits from Smiling
When you smile, your brain releases endorphins, natural opioid substances produced by the Central Nervous System. These endorphins stimulate the brain centers of pleasure and circulate through your body, creating a series of benefits.
1. Smiling makes you happier
You make endorphins when you work out, have sex, get a massage, hug, lie in the sun, eat chocolate, listen to music, laugh, and smile.
Additional health benefits include:
- Acts as a natural pain reliever, decreasing body pain.
- Reduces stress level.
- Strengthens the immune system.
- Assist in recovering from many diseases and illnesses, both physical and mental.
- Increase the sensation of pleasure and well-being.
- Improves mood.
- Increases the level of happiness.
A smile is frequently the result of a previous state of happiness and well-being. When you smile, your brain rewards you for releasing chemicals that make you feel even happier.
However, there are other times when you are depressed, and something or someone makes you smile. The positive effects of smiling are the same whether you are happy or sad. Therefore, your brain will reward you the same way as in the previous scenario.
The same thing happens when you fake a smile because the brain can’t tell the difference between a genuine smile and a fake one, so it releases endorphins in both cases.
2. It makes you feel better
The many positive effects when you frequently smile. These effects combine to make you feel good, which is better than those who do not smile as often.
Some of these beneficial effects include:
- Reduces blood pressure, decreasing your chances of heart disease.
- It prevents depression and sadness.
- Generates positive and pleasurable moods.
- It favors internal homeostasis, which is the inner balance of your organisms.
- Contributes to your mental and physical health.
- Improves your perception of your health.
- It helps you sleep better.
- It relaxes your muscles and reduces tension.
As Charles Darwin put it, “Smiling makes us feel better.” Smiling is a natural medicine that enhances health.
3. Smiling increases life expectancy
In 2010, a study was done at Wayne State University in Michigan, USA, to find out if the width of a person’s smile is related to how long they live. The study looked at photos and important information about basketball players from major US leagues as far back as the 1950s.
The data showed that the players who smiled in the photos lived an average of 80 years, while those who didn’t smile lived an average of 72.9 years, which was shorter. The researchers concluded that the width of a person’s smile could determine the number of years they will live.
Even though the results of this study back up what the researchers thought, that doesn’t mean that someone who smiles bigger or more often will live longer. But the fact that you smile and all the benefits that come from it (less stress, better immune system, less chance of depression, etc.) can help you live longer, be healthier, and be happier.
4. Improves social relationships
When you smile, you seem more approachable, pleasant, friendly, trustworthy, generous, educated, and optimistic. These traits make it easier for you to understand other people, connect with them, and strengthen your bonds.
Smiling is also contagious. So, if you smile at someone, they will likely return the smile, consciously or unconsciously. As Goleman said, “Laughter may be the shortest distance between two brains, causing an uncontrollable contagion that establishes an immediate social bond.”
This contagion is from the effect of mirror neurons, which are the parts of the brain that make people copy a gesture or behavior they see right away. When you smile at someone, and they smile back, it makes you feel better. Endorphins from smiling have the power to make someone feel better.
There have been many studies and research projects throughout history on smiles and social relations. One revealed that people rely more on a stranger if he smiles than if he keeps his face serious.
Another study at Harvard University showed that if a person is happy, there is a 25% greater chance of people around him getting infected with their mood.
Also Read: Emotional Instability: Causes and How to Treat It
Additional benefits of smiling include:
- Smiles make it easier to start a conversation or a relationship with someone you do not know.
- They make you seem more empathetic.
- Relationships are more satisfying and pleasant.
- They provoke positive feelings in others.
A Tibetan proverb nicely sums up what I’ve just told you: “When you smile at life, half the smile is for your face, and the other half is for the face of the other person.”
5. It helps you achieve your goals
When you smile, people see you as confident, intelligent, able to deal with problems, and have a high opinion of yourself. This can help you reach the goals you set for yourself.
For example, if you work in sales and have to sell a product, the customer is likelier to listen to you if you are smiling. A smile can also help you in job interviews, going to the bank to ask for a loan, or asking someone for a favor.
Smiling also helps with flirting since people who smile are seen as more attractive and have more self-confidence than those who don’t.
And a smile makes people more likely to agree with you, which increases your chances of getting what you want.
6. Reduces stress levels
When you smile, you know that your brain sends out several good chemicals for your body. Some of these chemicals, like endorphins, make people feel better and lower stress hormones like cortisol, adrenaline, and dopamine. These chemicals cause the person to feel less stressed. Smiling is an excellent way to relieve stress.
Curious facts about the smile
Because smiling is so important, there has been a “World Smile Day” every first Friday in October since 1999, and for a few years, the UN ran rankings to see how happy people were. Spain was ranked #36 out of 158 countries, and Switzerland is at the top.
The order changes if you look at photos on the visas issued per country. The United States is the one that smiles the most and Russia the least. Concerning sex, women smile more often than men.
Data shows that 33% of adults smile more than twenty times daily, while 14% do it less than five times. This number is very low compared to children, who smile an average of 400 times daily.
As you can see, the number of times a person smiles a day decreases as we age. The older you are, the less you smile. A recent study has shown that people who inject botulinum substances around the eyes can no longer smile genuinely, so they are more likely to become depressed.
Conversely, those who inject these substances into the forehead to eliminate the wrinkles that form in that area tend to be happier because they have lost the ability to frown.
