Research confirms the extraordinary benefits of smiling!
Research supports the benefit of smiling and if you don’t believe it, try this on for good measure. After you’ve made your way to the bathroom and finished your first order of business, go to the sink, splash some cool water on your face, rub it in briskly, towel it dry, look into the mirror and SMILE. Then then smile again. Suddenly you feel better, don’t you? And there’s good reason for it. You’ve just released a cascade of feel-good hormones that work in many ways to improve your morning outlook.
For example, your smile unlocked dopamine a substance well-known to affect mood in a strikingly positive way. Your smile released serotonin as well, and like dopamine, serotonin has an antidepressant effect! And the endorphins released along with dopamine and serotonin, act to relieve the early morning stiffness created by a nighttime of inactivity.
But wait there’s more!
While showering and getting ready for work keep the smiles coming and carry them into your workplace. There’s nothing more handsome or pretty than a genuine smile, and the welcoming, “Good morning!” that goes along with it. Research shows that smiles act as a contagion and create the release of feel-good hormones in others, just like the early morning smile you delivered to yourself just an hour or so before!
This is Dr. Jim for Be Healthy! Be Happy! urging you to power your path to happiness!
Reference: Sarah Stevenson, 2012. Magic In your smile. Psychology Today Online: [Available at:] https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cutting-edge-leadership/201206/there-s-magic-in-your-smile [accessed May 8, 2017].