-
- Anything more than Nothing is Something
- I'm Sixty is it all over?
- Are you holding on or letting go?
- Exploring the Shadows
- Bitter Sweet Mindfulness
- Create the Right Time for Change
- Change Who You Are
- The Disappointment of Personal Development
- Lessons from a Dog #231
- Turn Failure into Success
- Life is Hard
- Change yourself because
- Be Your Destiny's Parent
- What is Therapy?
- The Problem with Love
- Difference makes a Difference
- Ready Fire Aim
- Words on the Way
- The Freedom of Restraint
- Show all articles ( 4 ) Collapse Articles
-
- Learned Helplessness
- How Strengthening your FOUNDATION can change your life
- It’s Time to Talk – How to get men talking about mental health problems?
- Blueprints
- What have the Romans ever done for us?
- The Search for Something Bigger
- How to be Certain about Uncertainty
- Don't fear change, change your fear
- Cannabis: Addiction or Dependence?
- I'm OK are you OK?
- Don't Kill your Dragons
- Mind Travel
- Problems come from your past, not your present
- Tales of the Unexpected
- The Spin Cycle of Everyday Life
- All you need is Love
- Are your Red Boxes past their sell by date?
- Belief Triangles
- Change your Thoughts, Change your Reality
- Create the Headspace
- Labels
- You can choose your friends
- Why Smiling is Good for You
- Is your Librarian Stressed?
- Running - an uphill battle
- Can't Shan't Won't
- Your Own Natural Pace
- Achieving Freedom
- Scaffolding
- Show all articles ( 14 ) Collapse Articles
-
- Personal Insights into a Breast Cancer Journey
- We are all fellow strugglers
- How I healed my OCD
- Why Cognitive Hypnotherapy?
- Facing your Fears
- The Magic Happens outside the Comfort Zone
- Tree Uprooted
- Embrace your Space
- On New Year's Day I realised my worst fear
- Vision Quest
- Nearly always look on the Bright Side of Life
- Talking for Ted
- Work in Process
-
- Oh No Here comes Christmas!
- All the Lonely People
- Twelve Random Acts of Kindness
- Jelly Fishing
- What IS a Random Act of Kindness?
- Be Kind - a Revolution in Mental Health
- How to be Kind at Christmas
- Unexpected Kindness
- The Power of Compassionate Listening
- What has Honesty got to do with Kindness?
- To be Kind or not to be Kind
- Tame your Teenager with Kindness
- Should Kindness be one of your 5 a day?
- Can one person make a difference?
- Stressing the Kindness
- No Time to be Kind?
- Random Acts of Therapy
- A Friend in Need
- Freeze, fight or flight! - choosing an Act of Kindness
- You can't get on with everyone..
- Chaos, Kindness and Satchmo
- Show all articles ( 6 ) Collapse Articles
-
- Anxiety & Depression
- Real Hope for Smokers
- Relationships
- Confidence
- Addiction Illusions
- My Friend Stress
- Adverse Childhood Experiences
- Arachnophobia - a case study
- Do you need to be liked?
- Limited Loop of Beliefs
- The Rejection Advantage
- Time Travel to Success - a case study
- Student Case Study – A Blood Phobia
- PTSD & Trauma Recovery
- Thinking Slimmer
- The Stress Factor
- Cool Ideas for Hot Women
- Three Quick and Easy Ideas to Manage Stress
- Sports Hypnosis
- How I healed my OCD
- Show all articles ( 5 ) Collapse Articles
- My Quest Hub
- Features
- Why Smiling is Good for You
Why Smiling is Good for You
Why Smiling is good for you by Kim Wilson
Winter 2014
Not really in the mood to say cheese? You may want to have a rethink after reading these hidden advantages of cracking a smile.
Smiling doesn’t just show that you are happy, research suggests that smiling has lots of other benefits that may not be so obvious.
Next time you want to seem trustworthy, sociable or even more attractive, then smile. Here are our top 5 favourites.
1. Trust.
People who smile are perceived to be more generous and more extravert. Smiling sends a message that people can trust you and that you are co-operative. In one study it suggests that a smile increases people’s willingness to trust you by 10%.
2. Live long and prosper.
Did you know that smiling helps you live longer, sound implausible? A study of pictures of basketball players in 1952 suggests that those that smiled outlived their non-smiling counterparts by seven years.
3. Hurt? Laugh it off.
Due to something called the facial feedback hypothesis if we smile even when we don’t want to it is enough to give us a lift in mood. This may be something you want to try in private though. People who smile at something upsetting are less likely to be judged likeable by other people.
4. Been naughty? Flash that grin.
According to a study by LaFrance and Hecht (1995) we are more lenient with people that smile after they have done something bad.
It works because we find people who smile after breaking the rules more trustworthy than those that don’t and it doesn’t seem to matter if the smile is real, fake or rueful.
5. Share that Smile
When you smile at people, half of them will smile back. Why only half? We don’t really know but what we do know if that no one shares a frown so why not see how many smile’s you can collect today but showing yours first.
So next time you are feeling low, want someone to trust you or just boost your chances of working with someone, you know what to do 🙂