"Start with a Joyful SMILE ,since SMILE is the Key to Success"

Smiling.....

• Smiling is contagious. ...
• Smiling lowers stress and anxiety. ...
• Smiling releases endorphins. ...
• You'll be more attractive. ...
• Smiling strengthens your immune system. ...
• You'll be more approachable. ...
• Smiling will make you more comfortable. ...
• You'll seem more trustworthy.

Putting on a happy face doesn’t just make you more likeable; it makes you healthier, both good for your career.

We smile because we are happy, and we frown because we are sad. But does the causal arrow point in the other direction, too? A spate of recent studies of botox recipients and others suggests that our emotions are reinforced—perhaps even driven—by their corresponding facial expressions.

Few people would argue that smiling is bad for you, but new research is showing just how many ways smiling is beneficial to your career and well-being. We know smiling can greatly improve your mood and reduce stress. Even better, your smile doesn’t have to be real, so you can fake it and still get the same results. Each time you smile you throw a little feel-good party in your brain. The act of smiling activates neural messaging that benefits your health and happiness. ... The feel good neurotransmitters dopamine, endorphins and serotonin are all released when a smile flashes across your face as well.

Smiling doesn’t just benefit you on the inside. It also works to your advantage from the outside. A study from Penn State University found that people who smile appear to be more likeable, courteous. and even competent. This is reason enough to smile at every person you potentially want to do business with. Lifting those facial muscles into a smile is also contagious; if you smile and they smile, everyone in the room becomes a little happier. Researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden concluded that frowning when looking at someone smiling is possible, but would be very difficult.

Charles Darwin first posed the idea that emotional responses influence our feelings in 1872. “The free expression by outward signs of an emotion intensifies it,” he wrote. The esteemed 19th-century psychologist William James went so far as to assert that if a person does not express an emotion, he has not felt it at all. Although few scientists would agree with such a statement today, there is evidence that emotions involve more than just the brain. The face, in particular, appears to play a big role.

This February psychologists at the University of Cardiff in Wales found that people whose ability to frown is compromised by cosmetic botox injections are happier, on average, than people who can frown. The researchers administered an anxiety and depression questionnaire to 25 females, half of whom had received frown-inhibiting botox injections. The botox recipients reported feeling happier and less anxious in general; more important, they did not report feeling any more attractive, which suggests that the emotional effects were not driven by a psychological boost that could come from the treatment’s cosmetic nature.

“It would appear that the way we feel emotions isn’t just restricted to our brain—there are parts of our bodies that help and reinforce the feelings we’re having,” says Michael Lewis, a co-author of the study. “It’s like a feedback loop.” In a related study from March, scientists at the Technical University of Munich in Germany scanned botox recipients with fMRI machines while asking them to mimic angry faces. They found that the botox subjects had much lower activity in the brain circuits involved in emotional processing and responses—in the amygdala, hypothalamus and parts of the brain stem—as compared with controls who had not received treatment.

The concept works the opposite way, too—enhancing emotions rather than suppressing them. People who frown during an unpleasant procedure report feeling more pain than those who do not, according to a study published in May 2008 in the Journal of Pain. Researchers applied heat to the forearms of 29 participants, who were asked to either make unhappy, neutral or relaxed faces during the procedure. Those who exhibited negative expressions reported being in more pain than the other two groups. Lewis, who was not involved in that study, says he plans to study the effect that botox injections have on pain perception. “It’s possible that people may feel less pain if they’re unable to express it,” he says.

But we have all heard that it is bad to repress our feelings—so what happens if a person intentionally suppresses his or her negative emotions on an ongoing basis? Work by psychologist Judith Grob of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands suggests that this suppressed negativity may “leak” into other realms of a person’s life. In a series of studies she performed for her Ph.D. thesis and has submitted for publication, she asked subjects to look at disgusting images while hiding their emotions or while holding pens in their mouths in such a way that prevented them from frowning. A third group could react as they pleased.

As expected, the subjects in both groups that did not express their emotions reported feeling less disgusted afterward than control subjects. Then she gave the subjects a series of cognitive tasks that included fill-in-the-blank exercises. She found that subjects who had repressed their emotions performed poorly on memory tasks and completed the word tasks to produce more negative words—they completed “gr_ss” as “gross” rather than “grass,” for instance—as compared with controls. “People who tend to do this regularly might start to see the world in a more negative light,” Grob says. “When the face doesn’t aid in expressing the emotion, the emotion seeks other channels to express itself through.”

Why is a smile so powerful? It all comes down to how smiling can change your brain.

When you smile, your brain is aware of the activity and actually keeps track of it. The more you smile, the more effective you are at breaking the brain’s natural tendency to think negatively. If you smile often enough, you end up rewiring your brain to make positive patterns more often than it does negative ones.

If you smile often enough, you end up rewiring your brain to make positive patterns more often than it does negative ones.

Shawn Achor dubs retraining our “brain to scan for the good things in life–to help us see more possibility, to feel more energy, and to succeed at higher levels” as “The Positive Tetris Effect” in his book The Happiness Advantage. His argument is that the popular game Tetris has a tendency to make such an impression on players that after it’s been shut off, people still see Tetris blocks in real life. According to Achor, we can do the same thing by practicing a more positive thinking pattern, which, ultimately creates a happiness loop.

Achor writes: “Happiness is a work ethic… It’s something that requires our brains to train just like an athlete has to train.”

The more we train, the easier it becomes to think positively, shut out negativity, and, in turn, boost your productivity and creativity, which allows you to perform better at work and life.

Yes, all of those benefits can come from a simple smile. The more you do it, the more signals your brain will have to mentally shift to positive thoughts even when you might be in a situation that would normally cause you alarm.

Happiness is a work ethic. It’s something that requires our brains to train just like an athlete has to train.

Aside from your mental state, smiling can also end up saving your life, as Sondra Barrett claims in her book Secrets of Your Cells.

The biochemist says that when you let go of tension–an outcome that can be achieved through smiling–your cells let go of their rigidness. According to Barrett’s research, this could end up saving your life as there are have been cases where cancer patients go into remission of cancer after letting go of a big stress factor.

“Our cells are more than just fortuitous arrangements of chemicals,” she explains. “They are a community of trillions of sentient entities cooperating to create a sanctuary for the human soul.”

Scientifically speaking, smiling more is a great thing for your life. It doesn’t cost you anything to do it and you can actually fake it and get the same big results. Your career might even take a turn for the better as productivity increases, your attention span and cognitive abilities are improved, and you exude competence everywhere you go. With all of the benefits above, who wouldn’t want to start smiling more?No one yet knows why our facial expressions influence our emotions as they seem to. The associations in our mind between how we feel and how we react may be so strong that our expressions simply end up reinforcing our emotions—there may be no evolutionary reason for the connection. Even so, our faces do seem to communicate our states of mind not only to others but also to ourselves. “I smile, so I must be happy,” Grob says.

Scientist and spiritual teachers alike agree that the simple act can transform you and the world around you. Current research (and common sense) shows us that a smile is contagious (1). It can make us appear more attractive to others. It lifts our mood as well as the moods of those around us. (Merci, Colette.) And it can even lengthen our lives (2). So before you read on, slap a nice, genuine smile on that face of yours. You’ll thank me later.

How Smiling Affects Your Brain

Each time you smile you throw a little feel-good party in your brain. The act of smiling activates neural messaging that benefits your health and happiness.

For starters, smiling activates the release of neuropeptides that work toward fighting off stress (3). Neuropeptides are tiny molecules that allow neurons to communicate. They facilitate messaging to the whole body when we are happy, sad, angry, depressed, excited. The feel good neurotransmitters dopamine, endorphins and serotonin are all released when a smile flashes across your face as well (4). This not only relaxes your body, but it can lower your heart rate and blood pressure.

The endorphins also act as a natural pain reliever - 100% organically and without the potential negative side effects of synthetic concoctions (4).

Finally, the serotonin release brought on by your smile serves as an anti-depressant/mood lifter (5). Many of today’s pharmaceutical anti-depressants also influence the levels of serotonin in your brain, but with a smile, you again don’t have to worry about negative side effects – and you don’t need a prescription from your doctor.

How Smiling Affects Your Body

You’re actually better looking when you smile – and I’m not just trying to butter you up. When you smile, people treat you differently. You’re viewed as attractive, reliable, relaxed and sincere. A study published in the journal Neurophysiology's reported that seeing an attractive smiling face activates your orbito frontal cortex, the region in your brain that process sensory rewards. This suggests that when you view a person smiling, you actually feel rewarded.

It also explains the 2011 findings by researchers at the Face Research Laboratory at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. Subjects were asked to rate smiling and attractiveness. They found that both men and women were more attracted to images of people who made eye contact and smiled than those who did not (6). If you don’t believe me, see how many looks you get when you walk outside with that smile your wearing right now. (You’re still smiling like I asked, right?)

How Smiling Affects Those Around You

Did you know that your smile is actually contagious? The part of your brain that is responsible for your facial expression of smiling when happy or mimicking another smile resides in the cingulate cortex, an unconscious automatic response area (7). In a Swedish study, subjects were shown pictures of several emotions: joy, anger, fear and surprise. When the picture of someone smiling was presented, the researchers asked the subjects to frown. Instead, they found that the facial expressions went directly to imitation of what subjects saw (8). It took conscious effort to turn that smile upside down. So if you’re smiling at someone, it’s likely they can’t help but smile back. If they don’t, they’re making a conscious effort not to.

Looking at the bigger picture, each time you smile at a person, their brain coaxes them to return the favor. You are creating a symbiotic relationship that allows both of you to release feel good chemicals in your brain, activate reward centers, make you both more attractive and increase the chances of you both living longer, healthier lives. Your smile is something that should be worn often, so make it a priority to surround yourself with people, places and things that brighten your day. Vow to be the positive, happy person in your group of friends. Watch funny movies often and be sure to look people in the eye and show them your pearly whites. The world is simply a better place when you smile.

Smiling can make you look younger. Even if there were no other benefits to smiling, I’m sure many of us would be grateful just for this one. Researchers tested the popular theory that smiling might cause others to perceive you as being younger than you actually are. Sure enough, in a small study, college students perceived older people who had happy smiles on their faces as looking younger than their age. The people with frowns on their faces were categorized as looking older.Here’s my theory about this: A smile provides you with a mini-facelift. Turning up the corners of your mouth raises your entire face, including cheeks, jowls, and neck. Try it now!  just smile.

Smiling can make you look thinner. Sad faces randomized and flashed on a computer screen were judged to be heftier through a research. This is a surprising conclusion; I can only speculate that a mouth turned down in a frown might give the impression that a person is weighed down by unhappiness. In any event, I sense a bestseller here: The Smile Diet. 

More Research to Grin About

Here are seven more reasons to smile that I gleaned from past research:

3. Smiling elevates your mood and creates a sense of well-being. “Each time you smile you throw a little feel-good party in your brain.” The notorious party animals dopamine, endorphins, and serotonin start whooping it up when you smile. And a bonus: those endorphins serve as natural pain relievers and act as the body's own opiates.

4. Smiling induces more pleasure in the brain more than chocolate. I know you don’t believe this. I don’t believe it either. The Astonishing Powers of a Simple Act, “British researchers found that one smile can generate the same level of brain stimulation as up to 2,000 bars of chocolate.” Where do I sign up for the next experiment? And what happened to the person who ate 2,000 bars of chocolate? I’d like to interview him.

5. Even a forced smile can lead to a mood boost. Usually we think that a positive experience is what makes us smile. While this is true, it's also true that merely deciding to smile can provide a positive experience. As Buddhist author Thich Nhat Hanh said, "Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy." Even research subjects directed to place a pencil between their teeth, forcing their lips into a smile, actually feel better. Odd, but true.

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So if you’re feeling down in the dumps, smiling will give you a boost—if you can get your moody self to smile. Remember that changing your behavior by smiling can change your inner feelings. In other words, if you "Put On a Happy Face," you will actually feel happier.

6. Smiles can predict fulfillment in marriage. In a study cited by Gutman, the Smile author, the smiles of students were measured, and these ultimately predicted how long-lasting and satisfying the person’s marriage would be. Right! Who wants to live with a grouch?

7. Smiling makes you seem courteous, likable, and competent. Those first two qualities seem logical, but smiling makes you seem competent? Speculation: If you look sad or anxious, perhaps others wonder if you know what you are doing. So perhaps a simple smile might be a shortcut to business success.

8. The span of a person’s smile can predict life span. A 2010 Wayne State University research project studied pre-1950s major league player baseball cards. According to Gutman, “The researchers found that the span of a player's smile could actually predict the span of his life. Players who didn't smile in their pictures lived an average of only 72.9 years, where players with beaming smiles lived an average of almost 80 years.” Is a smile worth seven years extra years of life to you?

9. Smiling is contagious. As mentioned at the beginning of this blog, smiling is contagious. It's not just celebrities, but YOU who can light up a room if you enter smiling. If you like to help others and lift the spirits of everyone you see, just smile. 

The Shadow of Your Smile

Smiling, laughing, and positive thinking have been shown to have a huge number of health benefits to both mind and body. Stress has been linked to a number of health problems, including heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity. When you laugh, your body releases endorphin

Even though smiling is good for your health, your relationships, and your appearance, be aware of these six things:

1. Trying to avoid negative emotions just to appear youthful or thin or even eternally positive can eventually have a psychological cost. Know yourself and be aware of what each of your emotions might be telling you. Then decide whether to put on a happy face or not.

2. Other people can detect a fake smile, as opposed to a genuine "Duchenne smile," named for the neurologist who identified these two smile types. So if you decide to smile to help yourself feel better, try to make it real for yourself—it will also come across as real to others. Find your inner reservoir of happiness and gratitude, and drink from it. 

3. A smirky smile when you’ve beaten others in a contest will not help you win friends and influence people, according to the research described Or, as your mom may have said, "Wipe that smile off your face!"

4. Some smiles are associated with discomfort or uncertainty about what to do in a difficult situation. For example,  Ron Riggio points to studies showing that women who are sexually harassed, however mildly, may feel they have to “grin and bear it” in a work situation. Their fake and fearful smiles undoubtedly do not produce the feel-good chemicals that accompany an authentic smile. 

5. In some parts of the world, such as the former Soviet Union, smiling can be judged as suspicious, shallow, naive, or a sign of dishonesty. Many find truth in the line of the joke that says, "If you are smiling, you simply don't understand the situation."

6. Smiling can come across as submissive in certain situations. 

One thing I realized from reading through the smile research is that your dentist may indeed be your best friend. Improving your smile can be a beneficial investment. In any event, numerous studies show that making the most of your smile can be good for you, and for those around you. Why did the Mona Lisa become one of the most famous paintings of all time? That’s a question an incredible amount of people have asked themselves in the past. And one possible answer is this: because of her unique smile.The smile is is the “the symbol that was rated with the highest positive emotional content” concludes scientist Andrew Newberg. And for me personally, I’ve been very reluctant before embracing smiling. Only a few years back, when one of my teachers told me: “Why don’t you smile more? Go learn how to do it!”, I started to research learn about the actual power of smiling.

I had a brief moment of disbelief that anyone can learn how to smile better. And yet, since then, for many years, I practiced smiling in the mirror and on many other occasions. That’s a fact I’ve often been a little embarrassed to admit, yet the research of this post confirms how powerful practicing a bit of smiling can be. Smiling makes you more attractive. Smiling is contagious. Smiling requires less effort than frowning because fewer facial muscles are used. ... Smiling changes your brain chemistry.Each time you smile you throw a little feel-good party in your brain. The act of smiling activates neural messaging that benefits your health and happiness. ... The feel good neurotransmitters dopamine, endorphins and serotonin are all released when a smile flashes across your face as well

Smiling is a Universal Language we all understand

Smiling spreads joy

Smiling makes you more attractive

Smiling is contagious

Smiling requires less effort than frowning because fewer facial muscles are used.

Smiling builds relationships. It bridges the gaps between us.

Smiling puts you and others at ease

Smiling makes you more confident

Smiling changes your brain chemistry

Smiling attracts more of the same energy* to you.

? Here is a super simple fact about energy: It is attracted to the same kind of energy. Like energy attracts like energy. When we breath, feel and live from our heart energy, we attract more of the same. This is otherwise known as the law of attraction...reflection on your smile....is expected as comments by me!!!!!!