How Smiling Changes Your Brain

An article by Vivian Giang about smiling and brain changes is very revealing. New research shows that smiling is beneficial to your career and well-being. Even better, your smile doesn’t have to be real to get the same results. So fake it!

Penn State University found that people who smile appear to be more likeable, courteous and even competent. Smiling is contagious; if you smile at someone, they will smile back. And everyone in the room becomes a little happier. Researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden concluded that frowning when looking at someone smiling is possible but difficult to do.

What about your brain? When you smile, your brain is aware of the activity and actually keeps track of it. The more you smile, the more effective you are at breaking the brain’s natural tendency to think negatively. If you smile often enough, you end up rewiring your brain to make positive patterns more often than it does negative ones.

Sondra Barrett, a biochemist, in her book Secrets of Your Cells says that when you let go of tension – an outcome that can be achieved through smiling – your cells let go of their rigidness. According to Barrett’s research, this could end up saving your life as there have been cases where cancer patients go into remission of cancer after letting go of a big stress factor.

Scientifically speaking, smiling more is a great thing for your life. It doesn’t cost you anything to do it and you can actually fake it and get the same big results. Your attention span and cognitive abilities improve and you exude competence everywhere you go.

So start smiling and let THAT SMILE BE YOUR UMBRELLA!!