When we feel joy, happiness or contentment, our human reaction is to smile. Smiling is common for humans, but did you know that doing it more often can actually boost your health? Not only does smiling trigger good chemicals in your brain, but having a smile that you love helps to boost confidence and self esteem. Here are some specifics about how smiling can improve your life.

1- Recover From Stress

If you live a stressful life, smiling helps release chemicals in your brain like dopamine, serotonin and endorphins that have health benefits. These chemicals can act as pain killers and serotonin is an antidepressant. Studies suggest that smiling can help us bounce back from stress faster and reduce heart rate. While smiling is not a cure all for anxiety and depression, it can help to alleviate some of the feelings for a small time. 

2- Strengthen Your Immune System

Having a high quality immune system can help protect you from circulating bacteria and keep you feeling your best. Laughter, smiling and positive thinking can increase your immune response. Humor which usually goes hand in hand with smiling, can boost infection-fighting antibodies. 

If you feel run down or fatigued, smiling and laughter can help put a spring back in your step. While research is still being developed, having a positive attitude will always make you feel better. Looking at the bright side can make the dark world around us seem brighter. 

3- Show Confidence

Smiling shows others around you that you are confident and approachable. But having a smile that you are confident about makes it easier to smile. Those who are not happy with how their teeth and gums look are known to smile less. Keeping up with oral care and visiting a dentist that can help give you the smile you dream of will help you to reap these smiling benefits. 

The act of smiling is contagious, so showing others that you feel good enough to smile often makes them want to as well. Not only will you spread more happiness, but your peers will associate you with that expression and remember your actions. 

4- Increased Success

Just like increasing confidence, smiling may help you to see more success and achievement in your life. Research shows that those who smile are more likely to earn promotions and make them seem more trustworthy. If you are worried about your smile it may make you seem more closed off and can make it hard for others to trust you or approach you. 

Working on your smile can give you back some confidence and help you improve your self esteem. If we trust ourselves and have higher self esteem, others will be able to tell. 

5- Strengthen Relationships

Our relationships are important to us and helping those close to us know that we love them can boost their happiness and ours. Studies have found that smiling helps us to be seen as more likable and approachable, which can help to form stronger relationships. The positive expression of laughter and smiling can mean successful marriages, great relationships at work, better friendships and overall personal well being and satisfaction. 

6- Longer Life

Those who are happier live longer. It really is that simple and can help you get more out of life. While smiling won’t make you immortal, it can be associated with longer life spans if you laugh and smile consistently. Even if you don’t live much longer, having a positive attitude makes life more enjoyable, so your life will feel more rich, however long it may be. 

7- Reduce Pain

Our brain releases natural painkillers called endorphins that can have moderate pain-relieving benefits. A study published in the journal of Emotion, found that those who got an injection (such as the flu shot) and smiled while receiving it found that it hurt about half as much as those who were not smiling. So maybe the term “grin and bear it” may actually apply here. 

Ways To Smile More

If you are wondering how to incorporate more smiles into your daily life, here are some ideas to either fake it or induce smiles. 

• Practice gratitude in the morning
• Spend more time in nature
• Do one good thing for yourself or others, every day
• Read and/or watch something funny
• Remind yourself to smile

Let Mountain View Improve Your Smile

At Mountain View Dental, we want you to have the best smile possible and feel your best. We offer regular dental cleanings as well as other cosmetic dentistry services to help improve the quality of your smile.

Our office is located in Pleasant View and was built in 2015 to provide a greater quality service to our clients. We wanted our office to feel as comfortable as your home and help your whole family feel great in our office. You can take a virtual tour of our office here. 

Our three dentists want to make your smile the best it can be and boost your confidence. Working with us will increase your oral health and give you a beautiful smile. Our blog features some smile makeovers that show how our work can improve your life. 

Book with us online or come in and visit our office today!