Smile! Let the World Know You're Happier than Yesterday
Smile! Let everyone know that you are stronger than yesterday. Lift your head and let a smile spread across your face, one that your heart desires.
Because if life is determined by your attitude, then you should wear a smile that will infect your heart and restart your soul to keep going.
Boris Cyrulnik, a celebrated neurologist and psychiatrist, says that nobody really knows how to define happiness. We could say that, in a certain way happiness involves those wounds that have scarred over, but with time and resilience, give hope. These wounds and scars make you much stronger than the person you were before.
So each smile we give ourselves and the world is like a subtle song. It’s like an hymn of personal victory and the courage to accept everything you’ve gone through and overcome. A hymn to everything that makes you you.
A smile is a celebration of who you are and it’s your best tool to connect with others. When it’s backed up by authenticity, it’s even more powerful.
Don’t forget that there are stories hidden behind each one of these beautiful smiles we see.
Smile all the time, smile even if it hurts
Sonja Lyubomirsky, psychology professor at the University of California, is one of the most well-known scientists studying happiness. According to her, a smile is not just a simple gesture of non-verbal communication or a connection between two people. Actually, a smile is a type of high-intensity energy capable of altering our brain chemistry.
To prove it, she conducted a small study on people with severe depression. She played a video for them that contained various funny images as well as funny scenes with animals and monologues of famous comedians on television.
What most specialists expected was for the patients to not react to this type of images. However, they did, but in an almost imperceptible way, barely visible. They noticed small movements of the lips, in the face, between the brows…
These were almost instinctive micro-gestures that are associated with a positive emotion, something that many of these people with depression didn’t even know as they left the room.
The mechanism behind a smile is linked to a sudden release of neuropeptides, which alleviate stress. In order to change this negative charge to a positive one, serotonin, dopamine and endorphins are involved.
Sincere smiles
Marketing analysts and experts know that smiles have a captivating power on the consumer because smiles foster positive emotions, trust, and a sense of closeness. However, now more smiles are given out of politeness than out of joy.
Thus, when someone comes up to you with a smile on their face, you can’t help but wonder, “What favor are they going to ask? What do they want from me? What do they want to sell me?”
We like smiles. People smile at us for whatever reason, and we end up smiling back without even knowing why. We are enchanted by the laughter of children and immediately connect with anyone smiling to themselves, immersed in their own thoughts, distracted by a pleasant memory.
