According to a Psychology Today article, "There's Magic in Your Smile: How Smiling
Affects Your Brain (June 2012)," smiling
releases powerful chemicals in the brain that may reduce stress and lower heart rate.
Fritz Strack of the University of Mannheim, Germany also conducted a study on human smiles, which revealed that people, sometimes unconsciously used the act of smiling
to trick their mind into feeling better about a situation.
Similarly, participants in a lab-based study learned key-press associations for genuinely smiling
faces faster than those for politely smiling
Specific topics include: smiling
babies, the asymmetrically sexual overtones of smiles between men and women, smiling
as a service, and smiling
for cameras in an age of networked image-sharing.
In a study forthcoming in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, psychological scientists Tara Kraft and Sarah Pressman of the University of Kansas investigate the potential benefits of smiling
by looking at how different types of smiling
, and the awareness of smiling
, affects individuals' ability to recover from episodes of stress.
4 Studies have shown that smiling
releases endorphins, natural pain killers and serotonin.
ORLANDO, Florida, October 1, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Five hundred smiling
people from around the world gathered today in the world's theme park capital to set the Guinness World Record for the biggest smiley face.
The players were rated as "no smile" if they were just looking deadpan at the camera; as "partial smile" if only the muscles around the mouth were involved in their grin; or as "full smile" if the mouth and eyes were smiling
and the cheeks were both raised.
It seemed so surreal then as the 43-year-old man was trying so hard to look smiling
in photos, if not in real life, for a change.
releases endorphins and makes us feel better - even faking a smile can lead to feeling happier.
CUTLINE: WCRN-AM radio intern Ryan Boekenkroegiz keeps smiling
yesterday after giving a lollipop and smile sticker to Norio Takizawa.
A minute later, she's smiling
and talking about how great it was standing with her late husband, Leo, at Santa Anita Racetrack watching Seabiscuit coming down the stretch for another win.
This involves tilting your head down and then looking up from under your eyebrows while smiling
, conveying both innocence and a 'come-hither' look at the same time.
Young women drivers recorded the highest smiles-per-hour ratio - smiling
on average once every two minutes at the wheel - with drivers aged 66 or more the most stern-faced behind the wheel, likely to crack a smile as few times as six or seven minutes apart.
Even her tia Grunilda "blames" her for smiling