It’s actually simplier than you might expect. You just have to smile more. But legit smiles that you mean, not phony ones that only pretend to look real. For children, they end up smiling a whopping 200 times a day, while one-third of adults end up smiling only 20 times a day. Speaker Ron Gutman also has a lot to say about smiling and the power that can come from just cracking a smile.

Read on for the interview that he had with Bellasugar:

As you researched smiling, what surprised you most?
When we’re happy we smile, but the opposite is also true. The act of smiling makes you feel better. I was also surprised that we’re evolutionarily engineered to mimic smiles, so they really are contagious. It’s very difficult to frown when you’re looking at someone who’s smiling. Walk into a business meeting and smile, and see what happens.

What about fake smiles?
People may think they’re good at faking smiles, but human beings are even better at identifying them. There’s no real hallmark of fake smiles, but if you mimic someone’s smile you’ll be able to tell if it’s real or not.

Are certain smiles more attractive than others?
It’s interesting; in America we tend to show our upper teeth when we smile, while in Great Britain the cultural norm is to show your lower teeth. But no, there’s no one smile that’s universally the most attractive. However, big beaming smiles are associated with good health and even a higher quality of life.

So there are health benefits to smiling?
This blew my mind. One study showed a positive correlation between beaming smiles and the quality of marriage. Another showed that baseball players who smiled big on trading cards lived an average of almost 80 years, while those who didn’t smile lived 72.9 years. The size of your smile can say a lot about your overall well-being.

If you have time, you should definitely watch Ron Gutman’s TED video on “The hidden power of smiling” to learn a bit more and maybe be more tempted to find reasons to smile more in your life.

Source