
We have been conditioned to smile every time a camera clicks! Why, ever thought about it? Its because we feel and look the best when smiling. Go and try again. A genuine smile can actually make you look intelligent, attractive and trustworthy. It helps you to go one-step ahead in building your relations specially with people who don’t know you very well. Hence, we consciously smile more in front of people whom we are either meeting professionally or don’t know very well. It is all done to create a better impression. When it comes to people close to us, we know we can be ourselves.
Now, let us talk about smile and its benefits on a wholistic level. A study conducted in 2010(1*) proved that smiling can help you to trick your brain in feeling good, improve your mood and create positivity. Yes, sometimes it is ok to fake it, but not always because when you keep faking all the time, you are burying the actual issue under the carpet. Yet, sometimes its ok. We actually know it when its getting too much, both as a receiver and as a giver.
The question I receive here the most is that ‘If I don’t feel like smiling, then should I keep faking it?’. I actually love the honesty of this question because at some point or the other, we don’t feel like smiling – AND IT IS ABSOLUTELY NORMAL TO FEEL LIKE THIS. We are not a mannequin where we keep smiling so that we are able to create a better impression on others, especially whom we don’t know much. Smiling is just one expression of joy or happiness. In a day we feel various emotions and express them in numerious ways, so yes we can’t keep smiling all the time. If someone does it, be sure something is not right and it probably is fake. It unnatural to smile all the time and also to not smile at all. It’s an important expression as a being and we need to express it when we feel like.
There are some reasons due to which we don’t feel like smiling at all. In such cases, it is commonsense to address what is making you not smile, sad or angry without feeling any guilt of feeling it. There is no problem in feeling sad or angry or not OK. Its just a feeling which brain is signaling you to address either within yourself or with the other person. I tell you once you completely address & accept your sadness, smile will come eventually and this smile will be a genuine smile! Sometimes even after addressing our long time sadness, our brain starts getting used to be not Ok or sad. This is the time you need to follow this :
“Start Smiling – helps in letting go off your sadness – brain receives happy signal – you start feeling happy”.
Yes, in lot of cases this works.
A genuine smile is proved to reduce stress and enhance immunity, mood and most importantly our relationship with ourselves and others. Moreover, our brain stores our emotions and feelings which we go through on a daily basis and promotes those emotions more & more. If that’s true, why not focus more on smiling.
Smile helps in increasing our level of happy hormones, or endorphins. It works backwards and sends signals to your brain to instill the feeling of happiness to start with. This does not mean you smile 24 by 7, but when you do, do it completely!
#mindfulwithpc #mindfulliving #expressyourself #spirituality #wellbeing #mentalhealth #emotionalhealth #meditation #mentor #mindsetcoach #mindfulness #nononsense #empoweringlives #happiness #absolutepeace
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