Saying it with a smile

A smile is curve that sets everything straight. –  Phyllis Diller

There’s something contagious about a smile. Even if you’re feeling down in the dumps a smile beamed at you has the ability to bring those down turned lips upward and make you feel a whole lot better.

Saying it with a smile.

Smiles are free to give yet extend boundless value; a smile can bring sunshine on a dark day, encouragement to the nervous, comfort to the scared and a positive pill to the sick. A smile can express our amusement with life and our happiness and joy. A smile is a form of communication and a signalling system and can be a sign of sexual interest giving the green light to approach or move a little closer.

Are all smiles created equal?

Giving a good Duchenne in Uganda. Photo by Louise Crosby

Apparently not, with smiles being divided into two main categories: there’s your standard smile, you know that slightly lazier one that only uses the muscles surrounding your mouth. Then there’s the mother of all smiles, the genuine smile or Duchenne smile named after the French neurologist, Guillaume Duchenne who distinguished two types of smiles during his mid 19^th century research on the physiology of facial expressions.

The Duchenne smile that is uniquely associated with positive emotion includes the contraction of both the zygomatic major muscle; the muscle that pushes the corners of the mouth upward and the orbicularis oculi muscle; the one that lifts up the cheeks and creates crow’s feet around the eyes.

And before you go running for the Botox, there’s a third smile and a not so beneficial or flattering one.

If Botox has got the better of you then you are most likely wearing what’s known as the Pan Am or “Botox smile” smile. Famous for bestowing their superficial smile on their passengers, the Pan Am flight attendants inspired the moniker for a fake smile.

Wrinkles merely indicate where smiles have been.  – Mark Twain

7 good reasons to give good Duchenne

A Duchenne smile can:

• • Release endorphins which are natural pain relievers and serotonin, a neurotransmitter which is linked to feel-good states of being
  • Make you appear more attractive and approachable to others and enhances a more positive perception of you
  • Boost the immune system
  • Bring more peace to the world. Peace begins with a smile. – Mother Teresa
  • Have a positive effect on others; spreading the mood contagion
  • Reduce or relieve stress; while you are smiling feel good endorphins can help to reduce the stress hormone cortisol

Help your heart health. Researcher Sarah Pressman, of the University of Kansas, said in a statement from her 2012 study to investigate the potential benefits of smiling, “Not only will it help you ‘grin and bear it’ psychologically, but it might actually help your heart health as well!”

 So how much smiling is enough smiling?

Apparently one smile won’t do it and we need to increase our daily dose of Duchenne smiles in order to transform those negative emotions into more positive and resourceful states of being.

Practice frequent acts of Duchenne smiling

How can you get enough daily Duchenne?

• Make a goal to give away as many genuine smiles as possible
  That’s easy if you go out and about on walk, sit in a cafe or give smiles generously in your place of work.

• Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.  – Seuss
  Reframe how you see some of life’s experiences

• Watch a funny movie or read a funny book
  Better for you than all that excessive screen time

• Think about being kind and compassionate to others
  Simply thinking about acts of kindness and compassion can bring a smile to your face

• Learn some funny jokes and tell them to your friends and family
  Be selective as humour is subjective

• Smile while you’re driving and at other drivers at the lights
  You’ll make them wonder what you’re up to or maybe what you’re on

• Stare at babies; either they will make you smile or you’ll make them smile
  Ever noticed how a smiling baby can bring a stranger to their smiling knees

• Hang out with children
  Children laugh and smile 300-400 times a day while adults only average about 17.5 times a day.

• Eat your favourite food or some good organic fair trade chocolate
  Works for me

While writing this article I became aware that I had a perpetual smile on my face with my partner commenting that he had noticed I’d been smiling a lot at my desk. And with that we both smiled and laughed. See it’s contagious.

Louise Crosby
Photo courtesy Alexander Sharp

Keep  smiling