If you're looking to lower your stress levels, improve your
health and live longer, the antidote may be as simple as learning to smile
more.
Entrepreneur and health advocate, Ron Gutman gave a TED talk last year
that distilled 200 years of research into the science of smiling into a seven
minute presentation. Gutman delves into studies from around the world and
presented countless reasons why we should commit to smiling more.
Who would have thought that:
A person's life span can be predicted by the size of their
smile. A 2010 study examining the smiles of major league baseball players on
pre-1950s collector's cards found that those who weren't smiling lived an
average of seven years less than those with beaming smiles.
Smiling makes you happier than chocolate. A UK study found
that to replicate the brain stimulation of one smile you would need to eat the
equivalent of 2,000 bars of chocolate.
It's not only chocolate that loses out to smiling - just one
smile generates the same brain stimulation as receiving ₤16,000 in cash.
Not only does smiling helps reduce stress enhancing
hormones, but it enhances our levels of mood enhancing hormones and lowers
blood pressure.
Gutman's presentation is a real eye opener and leaves you
with a new appreciation of the power behind our simplest and most universal
facial expression.
