Beaders Health Notes
Smiling More Adds Years to Your Life
Did You Know...
You can add 7 years to your life simply by
smiling more?!
This exciting current research and its conclusions were born out of one of Darwin’s
little-known theories. Darwin claimed that
the mere act of smiling can make us feel
happy. Darwin recognized that feeling
happy makes us smile. Darwin proposed
that smiling can cause us to feel happy.
This concept breaks down further to ‘Givers Gain’ . OK then, let’s see: give a smile
... feel happy ... make happy ... feel good!
Close to a century and a half have gone
by since Darwin. Recently, scientists at
Wayne State University proved that Darwin was right. Here is what they found:
Smiling not only improves your mood, but
can also potentially lengthen your life!
Wayne State’s Scientific Findings
Wayne State University’s team of scientists
analyzed ball players’ smiles from 1952
photo baseball cards and found the size
of a player’s smile could predict the length
of that player’s life. Players who grinned
lived an average of 79.9 years, whereas
those who did not smile at all lived only
72.9 years. That’s a difference of 7 years!
This small study did not explore the biological connections between bigger smiles
and longer lives, if any, but the therapeutic
benefits of smiling in general have been
well-documented previously. Research
links smiling to a variety of positive outcomes. Here are just a few.
Normalized blood pressure
Improved health overall
Increased levels of endorphins and other
mood-enhancing hormones
Lower levels of stress hormones like cortisol, adrenaline, and dopamine
The Awesome Power of a Smile
According to a study carried out in the
United Kingdom, you don’t even need to
be the one smiling to benefit. Scientists
from Hewlett Packard used an electromagnetic brain scan machine and a heart-rate
monitor to detect the “mood-boosting
values” of different kinds of stimuli. For
44| August-September | RitzyToo! | RitzyToo.com
the tests, 109 volunteers were subjected
to three kinds of stimuli:
1. They were shown photos of friends,
family, and loved ones
2. They were given chocolate to eat
3. They were given cash
Smiling faces in the photographs had far
and away the most potent influence on
participants’ moods. “Participants who
were shown a child’s smile experienced the
same level of stimulation as they would
have from eating 2,000 bars of chocolate,”
the authors stated. Think about it! In
terms of money, it would cost you $25,000
to buy the same amount of happiness generated by a child’s smile!!
“The powerful emotions triggered when
someone important in our lives smiles at
us and we smile back changes our brain
chemistry,” commented Dr. David Lewis,
psychologist and author of The Secret
Language of Success, who analyzed this
research.
Phony or Fake Smiles Don’t Work
Either!
Lewis also highlighted the importance of
sincerity. Participants detected fake smiles,
which had the opposite effect on mood.
The moral of this research? ‘Bead Happy’!