The Super Power Of Smiling

Christopher Philip

Ron Gutman reviews a raft of studies about smiling, and reveals some surprising results.

Did you know your smile can be a predictor of how long you’ll live — and that a simple smile has a measurable effect on your overall well-being? Prepare to flex a few facial muscles as you learn more about this evolutionarily contagious behavior.

A summary of smiling’s super powers:

1. Obama’s super powers come from his super smile

2. MLB players life length is linked to a beaming yearbook smile.

3. Baby’s are born smiling and smile in their sleep. Even blind babies smile to the human voice.

4. Papua New Guinea tribes smile; we smile all over the world.

5. 1/3 of people smile more than 20 times per day. Less than 14% smile less than 5 times per day. Children smile more than 400 times per day.

6. You can’t frown easily when looking at someone who is smiling as it suppresses the control of facial muscles. This makes smiling contagious.

7. By mirroring a smile, we can more easily empathize with the emotional state of the smiler. When subjects placed a pencil in their mouth and ask to determine if a smile of another person was real or not, they failed more often than when people were more free to use their facial muscles to smile.

8. The “facial feedback hypothesis” says that smiling makes us happy because it feeds these emotions back into the body.

9. When botox impedes smiling, happiness is impeded.

10. One smile can create the same level of brain stimulation of up to 2000 bars of chocolate. Smiling is also as powerful as 16,000 pounds of pound sterling cash.

11. Smiling helps reduce levels of stress inducing hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline while boosting endorphin and reduce overall blood pressure.

12. Smiling makes us look good in the eyes of others as well as more competent.