Without doubt faces wearing frowns repel us and faces wearing smiles draw us closer. Hence the saying:
Smile and the whole world smiles with you: frown and you frown alone.
Smiling can help you change your own attitude and mood to counteract the effects of stress. It can also be received as a gift by others during times of stress. And under any circumstance a single smile has been known to provoke a chain reaction response.
A closer look at smiles
There are hundreds of different variations of smiles expressing the full range of human emotion. Experts including anthropologists, biologists and psychologists agree, the smile is recognizable worldwide and can be viewed as an international language understood by people across all cultures.
On one hand, if you choose to wear a smile, when you don’t feel like it, you soon be smiling for real and drawing people to you. On the other, not every smile is authentic — only a smile recognized as being genuine makes other people smile.
How can smiles be measured and what are the characteristics of a fake smile?
In July BBC reported the a value of the smile story that peaked my interest. A Japanese rail firm introduced computerized scanners around 15 Tokyo stations to measure the broadness of their employee’s smiles, and those with smiles that fail to measure up will be advised to look more cheerful. The software developed by Omron will also be used by a hospital in Osaka to assess staff friendliness, and at a truck stop to measure the tiredness of drivers.
This month the BBC reported a new study suggests people from different cultures read facial expressions differently.
In the study, East Asians were more likely than Westerners to read the expression for “fear” as “surprise”, and “disgust” as “anger”.
The researchers say the confusion arises because people from different cultural groups observe different parts of the face when interpreting expression.
East Asian participants tended to focus on the eyes of the other person, while Western subjects took in the whole face, including the eyes and the mouth.
Spot The Fake Smile Test
- This experiment is designed to test whether you can spot the difference between a fake smile and a real one
- It has 20 questions and should take you 10 minutes
- It is based on research by Professor Paul Ekman, a psychologist at the University of California
- Each video clip will take approximately 15 seconds to load on a 56k modem and you can only play each smile once — BBC Psychology Test
Time to smile
I haven’t been smiling much this summer. I have been under tremendous stress, and grieving the loss of my two little dogs, and coping with the most painful fibromyalgia episode I have ever endured.
Sometimes it’s life’s wake up calls like health crises that help us focus on making self-improvements. I intuit that I need to focus on doing myself and others the favor of smiling more frequently.
In her article The Art of Smiling blogger Tina Su provides tips on smiling and one of them is:
I’ve found it useful to be conscious of things that make me smile. You might want to spend a few minutes making a list of things that brings a smile to your face.
She inspired me to begin a What makes you smile? list. Some of the things I listed are below:
hearing “I love you”
being called beautiful
being appreciated
being hugged
being kissed
dancing
singing
So readers what would you include on your own What Makes Me Smile List?
sunrises
feeling soft cotton
drinking coffee
eating chocolate
cool breezes
seeing a elderly couple holding hands
butterflies
sunsets
Thanks for sharing Rhonda. I appreciate it.
The thing that make me smile always is knowing that something I did, even a little action,make other people smile.:)
That one should be at the top of my list and maybe everyone’s list. Thanks.
All of the above, plus:
My nieces
Seeing people offering kindness to complete strangers
The beauty of nature
Doing yoga
I’m sorry you’ve been having a rough time and I truly hope things get better soon!!
I have nieces who also make me smile. And now I have a new dog who also makes me smile too. Thanks for the kind words. I’ve had a really rough summer so I’m looking forward to a better autumn.
I often smile at people in my neighborhood. I guess as one grows into maturity, one is faced with the responsibility of trying to ‘make it easier’ for everybody. Life is hard. Why make it harder by frowning? To me smiling is an act of superiority and confidence. When you smile, not only you are showing a healthy side of you, you are also saying that I am confident to trust you and I have something I can give. There are people who equate smiling to condescending. This is not so. You can still smile but still stay rooted to who you are and what you are.
I like your take on smiling. In this small community we always wave at people passing by in cars or on bikes and we smile and nod at each other too. Even though we may not know everyone we smile at — smiling becomes contagious and it probably the only kind of “infection” we can all enjoy.
I’ve read Paul Ekman’s books years ago. Interesting stuff!
What makes me smile? I can’t help but smile in the presence of kittens. I love the little fluffy monsters!
I love kittens, puppies, fawns, baby birds … hmmm I love all baby animals and many baby people too. ;)
Cool i never thought about these silly stuffs like “What makes me smile?”. They are really awesome TT. I’ll have to make my “what makes me smile” list too. Thanks for sharing
Please share some of the things you put on your list with us. Thanks for reading and commenting too.
A smile is truly beneficial, both to our body and soul. Despite the misery of life we must try to give a little light of the positive side through a simple heartfelt smile. :-)
You said that very well. I agree. :)
Life’s stresses can make it difficult to find a ready smile when we want it. Like you, this has not been a summer filled with smiles. Each of us faces each day as best we can leaving us to accept that we don’t always feel like smiling. That being said, when we can muster up a smile for someone else, we brighten their day a little and their return smile gives us a lift as well.
Your post is well timed. The inspiration for my last post was getting caught up in a debate where people were taking themselves far too seriously. I don’t think many on the other end of the discussion were smiling. When I realized that I was doing the same thing, I had to stop and chuckle at how meaningless getting upset really over something that had no intrinsic value was.
I pray you will find a smile whenever you need one. Life throws a lot of suffering our way leaving us to deal with it as best we can.
Namaste
What makes me smile?
:A very very good movie.
:I met my girlfriend after about a month, today. I kept smiling for the next hour, sitting infront of her. She might think that i have gone crazy.
:Exam results (depends)
:My little brother
:Paycheck/success
Can’t think of anything else at this moment. :)