7 Reasons Why You Should Smile More Often

Smile! While you might not be on camera, there are a lot of reasons why you should smile more often. Smiling has physical, psychological, and social benefits—and even better, you can get those benefits by just making the choice of smiling. Here are some of the most important advantages of having a healthy, happy smile. 

1. Smiling Makes You Feel Happier

You can fake it until you make it. The act of smiling makes you feel happier even when you aren't happy, immediately improving your mood as your body is flooded with natural, happiness-inducing chemicals. If you're ever feeling down, smiling is an easy short cut towards feeling at least a little bit better—and that can help you deal with any issues you need to deal with.

2. Smiling Reduces Pain

Since smiling introduces endorphins into your blood, it also has an interesting side effect: it can reduce pain. Smiling relaxes your body, making it easier to get through difficult things such as muscle pain and soreness. Next time you're getting a flu shoot or a deep tissue massage, try to literally grin and bear it.

3. Smiling Lowers Blood Pressure

As a side effect of relaxing you, smiling also reduces your blood pressure. When you smile, your heart rate goes down. Your blood pressure drops and you feel better and healthier overall. Your heart rate can contribute to anxiety, artificially increasing anxiety when it goes up. In fact, quite often, anxiety-treating drugs are designed to make it so that you don't feel the physical effects of anxiety, as they promote the psychological effects. 

4. Smiling Improves Your Immune System and Reduces Stress

When you smile, you reduce your overall stress. Stress is one of the main inhibitors of your immune system. A better immune system will mean you get sick less frequently, which in turn improves your overall quality of life. If you're feeling that your life is a little too stressful, you might find it hard to smile—but it could be a meaningful way to make your situation a little more manageable. 

5. Smiling Makes You More Approachable

Want to get social? Smiling affects how other people perceive you, making you more generally approachable as well as pleasant to be around. If you want people to enjoy conversing with you more, smiling can help. Smiling also helps when you approach others, by making you seem non-threatening and friendly. After all, smiling originated as a way for us to display our emotions to others, showing that we aren't a threat and that we want a positive engagement.

6. Smiling Tightens Your Facial Muscles

While there's been a hefty debate regarding how many muscles it actually takes to smile, what isn't arguable is that smiling is a facial workout. The more you smile the more you tighten your facial muscles—and that ultimately affects how you look. If you want to look youthful (and happy), smiling regularly can definitely help. And the appearance of a few laugh lines is sure to brighten up your appearance as you do get older.

7. Smiling Encourages Others to Smile!

Do you want to see other smiling faces? It's generally considered to be rude to ask someone to smile, but smiling itself isn't rude—and it's contagious. In fact, both smiling and frowning can be contagious, which means you can use your mood to influence the moods of others. Even better, it has a cyclical effect, so they'll be encouraging your smiles as well!

As you can see, there are many benefits to smiling. But a lot of people don't avoid smiling because they aren't happy; they are just self-conscious. If you're worried about your smile, consider the benefits of a dental care plan that can give you a smile to feel confident about.

Dynamic Dental

Dynamic Dental

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