I make a point of always smiling at people on the street, in the office, or wherever I may be.  I often have people commenting on this, and have actually wondered at times if it makes me come across as somewhat ‘simple’.

But then I saw this TED Talk by Ron Gutman, and realized it’s actually my superpower 🙂 Watch the talk and check out a few of my favourite points below.

Fav points:

A study of baseball cards found that the span of a player’s smile actually predicted longer life – if this is true, I’ll be living into my 100s, smiling away!

More than a third of us smile more than 20 times per day – I can easily say I do this, and actually think it’s quite low.

Children smile as many as 400 times per day – I think smiling makes me feel more youthful and brings fun into much of what I do!

Smiling helps reduce stress-inducing hormones and increase mood-enhancing hormones – it promotes health!  There have been many studies on this.

Smiling makes you appear more competent – True, and I mentioned this in my Jobseeker advice post.  Smile and people feel better around you and think you are confident and competent.

Darwin wrote: “Even the simulation of an emotion tends to arouse it in our minds.” – the act of smiling actually makes us feel better!  This one’s my favourite.  When I’m feeling down, I tend to spend some time with my dog or watch one of my go-to feel-good movies, and I find myself smiling and in a good mood very quickly.  I wonder if it’s actually just the act of smiling that’s doing it.  I will test this… now I need a bad mood to come along.  Perhaps if I frown?

What power have you found in a smile?  How often do you smile in a day?