Last week, I wrote down a friend’s name. The mere thought of him brought a smile to my face – the byproduct of a thousand good times together.
A few days later, I watched my daughter perform in her high school’s joyous production of Mamma Mia. I smiled through the whole first act and most of the second. At various times, I looked over at my wife and other two daughters – often exchanging knowing smiles.
This morning, I sat impatiently at a stop sign as a father put his daughter on the school bus, then smiled when I overheard him singing an improvised song wishing her a great day.
I spent the majority of today at an elementary school. Sitting on the stage of an auditorium as groups of two hundred students came to listen to me read and talk about my children’s books. In the moments before each session, they waved and smiled at me, as I smiled back.
The average child smiles over four hundred times a day. The average adult does so thirty times. Breaking it down by gender, on average a woman will smile sixty times a day, while a man will do so only eight times.
The benefits of smiling are significant. Various studies show it reduces stress and blood pressure. It elevates your mood, boosts your immune system and in one study big smiles correlated to longer lives.
On one level, depending upon your view of the world or the events in your life, smiling might seem harder these days – if not outright – inappropriate.
Yet at the same time, there are reasons to smile all around us, providing we are open to seeing them.
Many articles will suggest seeking out a source for your smile in nature or in the actions of a child. But perhaps the most interesting suggestion was to find it in your own mirror. As odd or corny as it might sound, simply smiling at yourself in the mirror releases spirit-lifting neuro-chemicals, improving mood and confidence.
This is due in part to it triggering mirror neurons – another way of saying that smiling is contagious. I recently read a suggestion that if you see someone without a smile, lend them one of yours. Sound advice I’d say.
This week’s recommendation. Take a moment and look around. Find something to make you smile. Just now, three boys just walked into the Barnes & Noble wearing pink heart shaped sunglasses. Why? I don’t know or care. But it made me smile.
Share this with someone who makes you smile – and say thank you.