The Smile-Mind Connection

I had such a great response from last week’s blog on the power and confidence that is generated from ‘power posing’ that it motivated me to dig deeper to try to find other body-mind and mind-body connections that can help and improve people’s lives. The two that caught my attention were smiling and breathing. Let’s start by checking out that Smile-Mind connection this week.

There are some fascinating conclusions that come from several studies behind what the human smile can do for the body and the mind. Research has shown over and over again that the simple act of smiling reduces stress and, just like power posing, smiling releases endorphins in your brain which make you feel happy in addition to relieving stress.

Additionally, I was quite surprised to learn that studies have also shown that even if you force a smile your brain can’t tell it’s a fake and it will release the same good endorphins and reduces the harmful levels of cortisol in your body.  So hey, why not start forcing a smile even when you don’t feel like smiling at all? You should soon find your smile is no longer forced!

We can all learn a lesson or two about smiling from kids.  Watch them at play.  How much do they smile?  Even if they are only playing with a card board box that delivered a toy for their sibling, you will no doubt observe lots of laughing and smiling.  Kids usually smile about 400 times a day whereas even happy adults have been found to smile only 40 or 50 times a day. Worse yet, the average of all adults is only 20 smiles a day. That is little more than one smile an hour while we are awake.

So, okay … let’s all start smiling more, even when we don’t feel like it. I started doing the smile thing while power posing and it seems to be working. Besides, there is certainly much to smile about in your life. If you don’t think so now, try smiling more often and I bet it will be easier to see as well as feel the joy in your life.

Next week we’ll get to that other connection I found so interested—breathing and how it can change things in our bodies.