This week let’s smile!
It’s been known for ages that our physical body and our brain work together.
Put a frown on your face, hold it for ten seconds and you’ll start to feel dejected.
Clench your fists and your jaw and voila! you’ll soon feel more belligerent.
So put a wide smile on your face and you’ll soon start to feel happier!
You don’t even need to intellectually believe the smile – you just have to do it!
Naturally, if you think of something positive at the same time this will increase the effect.
So thinking of something or someone nice – and then creating a smile – is a surefire method for increasing your Happiness quotient!
Of course, it’s deemed unnatural to smile all the time.
But it’s not unnatural to smile often!
So the secret of this technique is to make it a regular habit!
Using mindfulness, whenever you realize you’re looking sad, down or even simply blank…..think of something happy and let yourself smile.
Hold it a few minutes.
Do it often!
I realize this takes a lot of discipline – but the benefits are well worth the effort!
Every time you’re ‘being happy’ your brain modifies its thinking patterns.
As Shawn Achor, the author, wrote: “The more you smile, the more effective
you are at breaking the brain’s natural tendency to think negatively.
If you smile often enough, you end up rewiring your brain to make positive patterns more often than it does negative ones”………
University studies have proven that smiling also:
– Significantly reduces stress
– Greatly lifts your mood
– Is contagious! If you do it, others will too! (It’s very hard to stay grumpy in front of a smiling person! Try it!).
Makes you seem nicer, more dependable and more competent.
“Smile’ the song first sung by Nat King Cole reminds us:
‘Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness
Although a tear may be ever so near
That’s the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what’s the use of crying?
You’ll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just smile…….’
This week schedule at least 140 purposeful delightful smiles (that’s just 20 a day).
Big smiles now!
Namaste!
Les