Smiling and laughing can have a positive effect on your life. Unfortunately, as we grow older and make the transition from childhood to adulthood, most people tend to become too serious to an extent that they forget about the need to indulge in this behavior.
If you belong in this category, it’s high time you changed your habits and started smiling more. Why? Because research shows that smiling and laughing enhances the quality of life in a number of ways, including;
1. Improves Mood and increases Relaxation
A warm laugh relieves stress and tension, leaving the body relaxed for close to a whole hour. Laughing and smiling also triggers the release of endorphins. Endorphins are natural feel-good hormones. When released in large volumes, the hormones cause us to feel happy and experience lower stress levels. They also act as natural painkillers to the body. If you’re in chronic pain, a smile or hearty laugh can help ease the pain, even if temporarily.
2. Improves Functioning of the Heart and Immune System
The heart and immune system both benefit immensely from those wide smiles and hearty laughs. In the case of the heart, smiling and laughing improve the function of blood vessels and increases blood flow. This can help protect you against heart attack and other cardiovascular problems. As for the immune system, laughter suppresses the production of stress hormones while stimulating the production of immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies. This in turn helps the body fight diseases.
3. Boosts Mental Clarity and Increases Optimism
Smiling and laughing makes you feel good. This good feeling is critical in achieving mental clarity and living an optimistic life. Even in the most difficult times, you will have the courage and strength to find new sources of meaning and hope. Feeling good also helps us shift perspective. Rather than seeing conflict and uncertainty all around, when you’re in a good mood, all you see is new opportunities and possibilities. If you want to live a successful life, this positive perspective is critical.
4. Creates and Strengthens Relationships
This is one of the reasons TV sitcoms use laugh tracks. Since laughter is contagious, when you see or hear people laughing on TV, you’re likely to smile or laugh too. In everyday life, this contagious nature of laughter can draw people to you and help you find new friends. After you become friends, sharing smiles and laughs can also help strengthen the relationship. Why? Because smiling and laughing releases inhibitions and allows us to express our inner feelings, resulting in stronger bonds.
5. Increases Productivity at Work
There are a number of ways smiling and laughing at work boosts productivity. For instance, the workplace is typically a tense environment. Tension creates a load in our minds that can slow down thought processing, resulting in reduced productivity. Smiling has been shown to remove this load for increased productivity. Also, laughter creates a positive workplace environment, draws people together, helps us re-charge, and makes us happy to work. All these are productivity boosters.
Want to Start Laughing More? Oso Marguerite Dental Can Help
Many studies, including a 2014 report published in the Huffington Post, show that dental issues are the main reason most people don’t laugh more. When a person has issues such as missing, chipped, or stained teeth, they feel embarrassed to smile or laugh publicly for fear of exposing their dental flaws.
Oso Marguerite Dental can help you fix those issues so can gain confidence in yourself and begin to laugh more. Contact us today to get started.
