“Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.” -Mother Teresa
Drastically improve your mood by smiling all day. You feel great, and at least half the people you make eye contact will smile back. You lift their mood—if only for a moment—which makes you feel even better.
At first, it takes effort to smile all the time. It’s unnatural. But like with anything, practice makes better. Force yourself to smile, especially when you catch yourself not smiling, and it’ll become natural within a few days.
Smiling Is a BS Shield
Besides drastically improving your mood, smiling all day also acts as an effective bullshit (BS) shield. Rude and grumpy people, getting denied, and other unpleasant encounters don’t get to you when you keep smiling. Seriously.
Try it next time. It seems unexplainable, but it really works. It’s like the next stage of smiling practice. Force yourself to smile through the unpleasant encounter, and it’ll become second nature after a few times. Smiling will stop daily BS from affecting you.
When you’re cold, you can either continue shivering or throw on another layer, feeling warmer almost immediately. When you’re in a lousy mood, you can either continue feeling bad or throw on a smile, feeling better almost immediately.
I Smile and Feel Great All Day
I always heard smiling magically makes you feel better, and that you use less muscles to smile than to frown, and all that stuff. I was skeptical for a long time. But during one particularly bad day, I remembered this and forced myself to smile while walking home. I was in such a bad mood that I smiled just for a laugh – I didn’t expect to actually feel better. Little did I know this is exactly what happened.
Smiling during the walk home almost instantly made me feel better. At the very beginning, I felt bad and only physically smiled. But within 10 seconds, my mood unexplainably was lifted. Smiling really worked.
After that moment, I forced myself to always smile, especially when I didn’t feel like it. My mood always drastically improved.
Now I smile all the time. It’s easy and I feel great throughout my day. I smile at everyone I see, and most of them smile back, their eyes becoming brighter too. Smiling is awesome.
Smiling Is an Insanely Effective Mood Improver
Do you have bad days you want to fix? Want to easily feel better? Smile all day and you’ll drastically improve your mood. Many others around you will also feel better, and you won’t let the daily BS affect you at all.
Smile. It’s an insanely effective mood improver.
“A smile is happiness you’ll find right under your nose.” -Tom Wilson
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(Image: Yuji Kobayashi)
10 Comments
In psychology, there is a theory entitled the “facial feedback” hypothesis. This hypothesis states that “involuntary facial movements provide sufficient peripheral information to drive emotional experience” (Bernstein, et al., 2000). Davis and Palladino explain that “feedback from facial expression affects emotional expression and behavior” (2000). This is scientific evidence that SMILING does indeed drastically enhance your emotional state while providing your body with the necessary passion for the purposes of living. Great ideas and something that we need to have even more people adopt into their world…SMILE!!!!
Thanks for the great comment Jared. So cool that there’s scientific evidence supporting smiling. I knew about some sort of psychological reasons for why we feel better for smiling, but no specifics.
Cheers for sharing that. I love learning new tidbits throughout the day
All the best with your site BrandEntity, and keep smiling,
Oleg
Hey Oleg:
I was just thinking that I need to smile more often. You mention that smiling is great way to shield yourself from daily BS and make yourself better. That is true. And Jared makes a great point about psychological studies proving that point.
However, I want to elaborate on a point that you made: “I smile at everyone I see, and most of them smile back, their eyes becoming brighter too. Smiling is awesome.” I think that is what smiling is all about.
Here’s how it think of smiling : “Smiling is like lighting a light in a pitch dark room”. It makes you feel brighter, but more importantly it makes so many other people see the light and it brightens their day as well. And that is one more reason to smile.
Smiling also make your look more approachable, friendly and it will open many more opportunities in your life. It will make you stand out. Most people have a lot of difficulties and pain in their lives and it is hard for them to cheer. It become almost a normal thing to be grumpy towards others.
Yet, I think to so many instances when my day was so much better better because I saw somebody smile or be friendly to a complete stranger. You never know how far will your smile or an act of kindness go, because if you light just one more candle, that same candle can light many more and in reality you will have made a difference not only in one person’s life, but in more than you can think of.
One thing I do believe in is being genuine about smiling. People can tell fake smiles. It is alright to use fake smiling to get used to smiling all the time, but a fake smile can cause more damage than a grumpy look on your face.
Great post, Oleg!
Keep working.
Best,
Tomas
Thanks for reading Tom! It’s a pleasure receiving your awesome comments – I’m humbled.
Digging your metaphor with the light in a dark room. A great visualization for the effect smiling has. And I completely agree with your point about genuine smiling opening opportunities you might’ve not otherwise gotten had you been grumpy. Some new food for thought, and worth a follow-up article. How to Unlock Opportunities: Smile
Appreciate the nice words. Keep writing yourself and stay smiling,
Oleg
I approve! I really like when I see people smile. It feels good to smile back also.
Great Post,
Oleg
Thanks for reading and commenting Alex. Appreciate you stopping by and your nice words.
Here’s to continued smiling
Oleg
Oleg,
You know what I liked most about this post? That personal story, to illustrate your point! You didn’t do that in previous posts I’ve read (which ended up a little cliché-like as a result*). This is way better, and I’m pointing it out so that you know what to aim for.
Revealing personal details/feelings/thoughts is not easy for many people (including myself) but it makes for compelling reading (watch & learn from Penelope Trunk).
* but I read them nonetheless, so don’t get discouraged
Thanks a bunch for reading and your helpful comment Concojones. Glad you liked the personal story in this article. I agree, a personal story is a powerful way to add credibility to an article – it becomes based on experience, not just theories.
I actually try to include a personal story in each article I write: it’s part of my template. But maybe the personal story in some of my earlier articles wasn’t strong or detailed enough, to where it wasn’t making any impact. Thanks for the helpful critique. I’m pushing myself to make the personal stories a lot better in my future articles.
Thanks again for stopping by, offering your helpful insight, and all the best,
Oleg
You are right about smiling, it’s such an amazing thing to do to just feel better. Have a nice day.
Oscar
Thanks so much for reading and leaving a comment Oscar. Here’s to you having a great day as well… one filled with smiling
Best,
Oleg
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[...] A fellow blogger and a good friend of mine, Oleg Mokhov, covered smiling in one of his outstanding articles: “How to Drastically Improve Your Mood: Smile” [...]