Smile.. It really is contagious!

Wouldn't you love it if smiling really was contagious. How easy it would be to surround yourself with happy people! Just smile and everyone is smiling with you.

Well it may really be that easy. Try it! Smile at someone, anyone, and see what happens. You can be pretty well guaranteed that you will get a smile back! We can actually transfer our moods to others.

Have a read of this:

"Emotions are contagious. We catch feelings from one another as though they were some kind of social virus....How does this magical transmission occur? The most likely answer is that we unconsciously imitate the emotions we see displayed by someone else, through an out-of-awareness motor mimicry of their facial expression, gestures, tone of voice and other nonverbal markers of emotion. Through this imitation people re-create in themselves the mood of the other person."
'Emotional Intelligence - Why it can matter more than IQ'

 

This is really cool stuff! We all have the ability to make someone else's day just by smiling. How? Psychologists have proved that smiling can instantly lift your spirits, and if we lift our spirits, we are lifting those around us.

Now to the technical stuff. I am really fascinated with how the body actually does this. It does this through an unconscious release of dopamine when we smile:

"When we smile, fake or real, the contractions of the facial muscles slightly distorts the shape of the thin facial bones.  This slight distortion in their shape leads to an increase in blood flow into the frontal lobes of the brain and increases in the release of dopamine (Iwase et al., 2002, Neuroimage 17:758).  As a result, walking around all day with a smile on your face will bias your mood to be happier. Not only will you be happier but your smile might spontaneously induce the release of dopamine in someone else's brain—now that truly demonstrates the power of a smile."

© Gary L. Wenk, Ph.D. Author of Your Brain on Food (Oxford, 2010)

How amazing is that! We don't even have to think about it. We all know how to smile! We just have to do it.

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Mahatma Gandhi

Smiling is a universal sign of happiness and is the most easily recognisable facial expression. There really is no excuse for not communicating this way.

Smile - this simple physical change will brighten your mood and the moods of others around you.

~Veronica Wood~