a good day is just a smile away

Before starting to read this article let’s do a short experiment together.

Bring the corners of your mouth up to a big smile, and try to make the corners of your eyes wrinkle in the process. Now, stay like this for 60 seconds. Breathe calmly in and out. And yes, maybe it feels at first a bit weird and not natural. But this shouldn’t trouble you. Just stay like this and concentrate on your breath and if you like you can close your eyes while smiling.

What happened to you after this little exercise? Do you feel any different than before?

Let us explore now, what happens with us when we fake a smile and why we should smile or laugh more often.

The moment we start smiling we send a message to our brain, saying: I AM HAPPY. Even if that wasn’t true at all, the brain acknowledges the muscle activity and reacts by releasing hormones including serotonin and dopamine. While serotonin helps to reduce stress, dopamine increases our feelings of happiness. So, instead of waiting to be happy, we can use this 60 seconds’ smile exercise to trick our brain into these positive feelings.

This is scientifically proven. The relatively young field of humor research, also called gelatology deals with the physical and mental effects of laughter. Prof William Fry, the founder of gelotology, used to say: “Laughing is jogging while sitting down”. He discovered that 20 seconds of laughter is at least as demanding on the body as three minutes of jogging. So, when we laugh we challenge the body and train the cardiovascular system. Other studies have shown that laughter strengthens the immune system, lowers cholesterol and even reduces pain. Laughing is indeed the best medicine, it is easy to take and costs hardly anything at all.