No one understood the benefits of a great big smile more than the late Harvey Ball, the US commercial artist who created the popular yellow smiley face in 1963. But over the years he became concerned about the over-commercialization of the symbol. To combat this, he created World Smile Day, held on the first Friday in October each year.  

 

Just why is a smile so important? 

Smiling and laughing feels fantastic – and come with a whopping load of health and wellbeing benefits too. This can: 

  • Release feel-good hormones, like endorphins, serotonin and dopamine, which make you feel happier and more positive  
  • Lower blood pressure, relieve pain, reduce stress and boost your immune system 
  • Draw people to you and improve connections (you can even ‘hear’ a smile on the phone) 

 

Keep smiling 

Why not try a small experiment? Focus on smiling and laughing more for a week – and see if anything happens differently and how you feel at the end of it. A few tips if you fancy doing this: 

  • Reminders on your phone or post-its on your fridge, laptop, and phone will help you remember to smile throughout the day. 
  • If you’re not feeling it, even fake smiling means you use muscles in your face that send happy signals to your brain. 
  • Obviously, the best chuckles are genuine, so look out for ways to be amused and share a smile – spend time doing silly things with the kids in your life, grin at a baby on the bus, hang out with funny friends, watch YouTube videos or movies that will make you laugh, or go and see a comedian. 

Eventually, smiling more will become a habit. It’s also contagious, so smile and the world should smile back at you. 😊 

 

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