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 looses 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.
