deepstash
Beta
Deepstash brings you key ideas from the most inspiring articles like this one:
Read more efficiently
Save what inspires you
Remember anything
The Science of Smiling & Why It's So Powerful | Buffer Blog
4
Key Ideas
Save all ideas
Smiling and the brain
Smiling stimulates our brain’s reward mechanisms in a way that even chocolate, a well-regarded pleasure-inducer, cannot match.
93 SAVES
Real vs. fake smiles
Whenever we smile, there are 2 potential muscles we activate.
- The zygomaticus major and it controls the corners of your mouth. Whenever this muscle only is activated, it’s not actually a genuine smile. Scientists call this also the “social” smile.
- The second muscle, known to show sincerity is the obicularis occuli and it encircles our eye socket.
102 SAVES
What smiling does
- Smiling reduces stress that your body and mind feel, almost similar to getting good sleep, according to recent studies.
- Smiling helps to generate more positive emotions within you. That’s why we often feel happier around children – they smile more.
- Smiling leads to decrease in the stress-induced hormones that negatively affect your physical and mental health.
- Smiling breeds trust, makes you happier and helps you to live longer.
113 SAVES
Smiling can be re-learnt
- Imagine a situation of joy before an event: Visualize someone you deeply love, or recall an event that brought you deep satisfaction and joy.
- Practice smiling in front of the mirror. Practice activating both your mouth corners and your eye sockets.
- Become comfortable with smiling. If in your head, you can imagine yourself going through the day and smiling lots to everyone and everything, that’s often when a happier life starts.
98 SAVES
SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
2
Key Ideas
What a smile can accomplish
- Smiling can make you look younger and thinner.
- Smiling elevates your mood and creates a sense of well-being.
- One smile can gener...
The shadow of your smile
- Trying to avoid negative emotions just to appear youthful or thin or even eternally positive can eventually have a psychological cost.
- Other people can detect a fake smile. Try to make your smile real for yourself.
- A smirky smile when you’ve beaten others in a contest will not help you win friends and influence people.
- Some smiles are associated with discomfort or uncertainty about what to do in a difficult situation. “grin and bear it”
- In some parts of the world, smiling can be judged as suspicious, shallow, naive, or a sign of dishonesty.
- Smiling can come across as submissive in certain situations.
10
Key Ideas
Smile ≠ happy
Those who smile often are thought of as more likeable, competent, approachable, friendly and attractive.
Of 19 different types of smile, only six occur when we’re having a good time...
Duchenne smile
Duchenne was interested in the mechanics of facial expressions, including how the muscles of the face contract to produce a smile.
The Duchenne‘ smile is long and intense, though it involves the contraction of just two muscles. First the zygomatic major, which resides in the cheek, tugs at the corners of the mouth, then the orbicularis oculi, which surrounds the eye, pulls up the cheeks, leading to the characteristic ‘twinkling eyes’.
Fear smile
In babies, a broad grin can either mean they’re happy or distressed and studies have shown that men tend to smile more around those considered to be higher status.
4
Key Ideas
Looking Friendly
- Smile. It is even more important than you think. It's a great way to create trust. We judge people to be more pleasant when we are smiling.
- Expand. Body movements th...
Being More Influential
The best body language for influence depends on your goal. Make sure your body language matches your words to make you more effective.
- If you want to increase the attractiveness of an offer, think sales-y. Use animated movements. Lean forward. Move and speak quickly.
- If you want to reduce resistance to what you're saying, think calm and authoritative. Specific gestures. Lean back. Move and speak slowly.
Looking Like A Leader
It is important to balance the appearance of authority and warmth.
- You show authority and power by your upright posture, your command of physical space, purposeful stride, a firm handshake, and palm-down gestures.
- You communicate warmth nonverbally with open body postures, palm-up hand gestures, full-frontal body orientation, positive eye contact, synchronized movements, nods, head tilts, and smiles.