Healthy Smile; The Benefits of Smiling and How it Can Make You Live Longer and Better

Healthy smile; the benefits of smiling and how it can make you live longer and better

Studies have shown that there are definite mental and physical benefits of smiling. It is claimed that not only will a healthy smile make life easier to deal with, but it could even mean that you live longer. I must admit that this all sounds really impressive. On the other hand, if I were to walk around with a big smile on my face all the time people might think I was a bit mad; I also come from a culture where doing too much of this type of thing is viewed as just begging the gods to smite you. So before I risk upsetting the puppet masters and ruining my reputation it would be nice to learn a bit more about the benefits of smiling.

The most obvious positive outcome of frequently smiling is that people tend to think better of us; assuming that we don't scare them off. A healthy smile does make us seem a lot more approachable and nice to be around. I must admit that in the past I have crossed the street to avoid having to deal with my more dour friends. Happy people are certainly easier to be around and one of the benefits of smiling is that you tend to look a lot happier. It also has to be said that a smile makes people look more attractive so another of the great benefits of smiling is that you could win you a mate.

Not only does smiling make other people think you are happier but apparently it actually does make you feel a lot more positive about life. The science behind all this seems to suggest that the act of smiling and feeling happy are so closely related that we can fool our brains into to thinking we are happy by smiling. This is taking 'fake to make it' to a whole new level. A healthy smile can actually change the chemistry of your brain, and the brain is like a muscle in that the more you make it do something the stronger it gets at this task. You can teach your brain to feel happy.

If all this wasn't enough, smiling can mean you live longer. Your healthy smile helps boost your immune system and lower your stress levels. This in turn will help you fight of disease easier and lower your risk of cardiovascular disease.

The benefits of smiling are not only that you will live longer, but you will enjoy being alive. This certainly seems like a fantastic deal to me and who cares if people think I've flipped my lid. The only problem is remembering to smile and to do this I have stuck little stick-up notes on my computer and other places where I'll see it. So if you want to have a great life and live longer don't stop smiling.