According to Ron Gutman: “your smile can be a predictor of how long you’ll live, and a simple smile has a measurable effect on your overall well-being.”
A medical friend once advised: “Always be happy and smile because you never know what advantage you’re giving yourself; and who’s falling in love with your smile.” Is this true? That’s the question this article aims to answer.
Keep reading to see many more. Smiling has an amazing positive impact on your spirit, soul, and body when you do it regularly. But people have reduced this wonderful act to a spontaneous response to things that prompt their happiness or inspire amusement.
While this is invariably true, it leaves an essential point: smiling can be an intentional choice. Studies have shown that consciously smiling can improve your life, but you decline to engage in this significant act as you grow older.
Ponder about children’s continuous laughter and smiles on their playground; you see, they live in the moment. Meanwhile, their parents sit around the perimeter, stressed out from the hustle and bustle of life and only cracking a smile when necessary. Making more place in life for smiling and laughing might help adults if they follow children’s lead. Below are some reasons you should regularly deliberately smile.
1. It is a command from God.
The Holy Bible has over a hundred verses encouraging God’s children to rejoice always. In particular, the apostle Paul put more emphasis on rejoicing always in almost all of his letters. For example, in Philippians chapter 4 verse 4, he says: “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!” It implies that if you are a child of God, it is His will for you to express His joy in you by smiling always. I believe the reason is that you are affirming your trust in God by consciously and intentionally smiling, and He will always be there for you.
2. Smiling communicates our friendliness.
A friendly countenance easily attracts people’s attention, creating an excellent first impression, but people seldom interact with someone with a hostile face. Therefore, when a stranger approaches you, makes eye contact, and then smiles. Whether genuine or not, your first assumption is that they are kind and do not intend to harm you. However, trusting a stranger with a scowl or unfavorable facial expression would be far more complex. Hence, smiling creates a positive impression about you on people, which also says you’re friendly.
3. A smile can provide happiness to others.
When someone smiles at you, naturally, you want to reciprocate the smile. Saying nothing, you get a brief burst of positive communication. You can do this a hundred times in a short period while walking through a crowded place such as the main street. When you grin at someone who isn’t already smiling, and they return the smile, you’ve given them a moment of happiness that could last all day.
4. It’s easy to spread a smile.
You’ll soon notice that if you spend a lot of time with someone who grins a lot, their smile affects you. It’s difficult not to smile back because it makes you feel amused inside when someone smiles at you. You’ll want to smile back; we all do it subconsciously.
5. Smiling makes it easier to make new friends.
A cheerful person always has many friends because most people want to make friends with them. Similarly, few of us would prefer to be friends with uncheerful people. The reason is, life is filled with many challenges. Therefore, we all want someone upbeat, joyful, and positive to distract us from our challenges by cheering us on. In other words, if you like to make new friends, always, cultivate the habit of smiling all the time.
6. Smiling helps you feel good.
It’s difficult to be dissatisfied, pessimistic, or melancholy while you grin. Smiling instills energy and motivation in you. It also creates the right mindset and develops a positive habit.
7. A smile enhances your attractiveness.
You don’t see many celebrities or media figures without a smile, because they become less attractive if they do not smile, and their popularity would almost certainly plummet if the face is uncheerful. Hence, they smile always to maintain their glamour and significance. Therefore, if you want to remain attractive as a public figure, learn to smile always.
8. Smiling also aids in the remembering of others.
Have you ever observed that folks who are smiling stand out significantly more than those who are not? It is a proven truth that you’re three times more likely to remember someone who smiles than someone who has a sad or neutral expression.
9. Smiling is good for your health.
Smiling improves not only our mood but also helps our bodies release cortisol and endorphins, which have a variety of health benefits, including lower blood pressure, increased endurance, reduced pain, reduced stress, and a more robust immune system. Whatever you’re doing becomes much easier when you’re smiling. It relieves the worry and tension that have accumulated. Developing the practice of smiling is one of the most innovative things you can do to improve almost every aspect of your life in the long run.
10. A smile buys you time to solve a problem.
Smiling helps put your concerns and challenges on pause. It helps you forget about your difficulties for a moment and become optimistic. With an optimistic mindset, you have more potential to find a solution to your problem and improve your life. Are you feeling overwhelmed because of life’s problems? Try to smile and see beyond now into a better future? You’ll find a solution to the problem and see that it’s not as difficult as it seemed.
11. Smiling is free and easy to do.
There will never be a shortage of smiles, and there will always be plenty to go around. Because, when you consider the benefits of smiling, it is clear that doing it and sharing it is very beneficial. The good thing about it is that it is so easy, beautiful, and free to do.
Conclusion
Human life is full of challenges. If you don’t find a means to distract yourself from these challenges, they will preoccupy and obsess you until you become unproductive, and believe me; it can even get worse if you allow it. But with a deliberate, conscious smile, you unburden yourself of the load until the solution comes. However, this may not be easy to do naturally. Therefore, you need God to help you. He is the reason for a genuine and lasting smile because the joy of the Lord is always your strength. Nehemiah 8:10.
May you receive the power to smile always In Jesus’ Name.
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