Keep Smiling – and Life will Love You Back.

Is there anything in common between Joconde and young Whitney Houston? How about a casino jack pot hitter and Michael Phelps after wining the Olympic gold, or the first man in space and your own baby pictures? That beautiful open smile, isn’t it.

Our smiles can signal health, compassion, powers of love, success, security, and a whole bunch of other definitely positive intentions towards the people and the world. These signs of happiness are triggered by the release of certain hormones and neurotransmitters (like dopamine and endorphins) by both hippocampus and stem portions of the brain responsible for mood and are therefore often involuntary and instinctive.

For millions of years of natural selection happiness developed as a reward for the activities and events enhancing the chances of human populations for survival and reproduction. Ability to instantly recognize the signals of happiness and positive intentions and distinguish them from signals of danger and hostility may have been a borderline between life and death, passing or not passing of our ancestors’ genes to the next generation. Still today we instinctively smile and attempt to wave back to a stranger who smiled and waved to us, but do not immediately try “mooning” some one back if they “mooned” us from a passing by car. Makes sense to accept the friendly and resist the cruel or not so friendly intentions.

The “feed back” feature or “contagiousness” of the smile serves a crucial role in keeping us attractive, bonded and cooperating, and our babies loved and nurtured. Our smiles help us and those around to live longer and healthier by alleviating stress, stimulating the work of our immune system, minimizing aggression, normalizing heart rate and blood pressure, relieving physical and emotional pain, stimulating memory and learning. In reference to learning, by the way, it has been demonstrated many times that friendly and rewarding atmosphere provides for a much more efficient learning environment as compared to a hostile and punitive one. I once overheard a college professor bragging of what a “tyrant” and a “monster” he was in class and how he’d always “fail” at least half of his students. What a horrible, unfortunate and harmful educational experience did those students have to endure! It would be similar to hiring a mean baby sitter, or a cruel and aggressive nurse coming to take care of you or your family member.

Aggression causing stress and fight-and-flight hormones release (like epinephrine and nor epinephrine, gluco- and mineralocorticoids) cause heart disease, inflammatory reactions and a whole lot of other problems by suppressing the work of the immune system. So either home, or classroom, or work environment full of rage, conflicts, screaming and door slamming is both unhealthy and not productive. The brain will be pushed to mobilize more power for defense and launching of counterattacks rather than creative thinking.

Now here is the time to reveal a great evolutionary remedy our ancestors have provided for us. When ever you feel down and things do not seem to go your way at work, or home or in personal life, do not despair. Find some body in need or in trouble and do something truly altruistic to help them. Remember Will Smith in “I am Legend”? Don’t necessarily have to go that far, or risk your life in the first manned space shuttle. Just do something good for others and their smiles will lighten you heart. Even if you could help out an innocent animal or did something good for the environment, your brain would release a good portion of rewarding dopamine and endorphins to ease your own pain. And in the worst case just come up to the mirror and force a smile upon your face no matter how fake. Stare at your own smiley reflection for a few minutes and the sensory input path from nerve dendrites in your facial muscles and visual receptors in eye retina will trigger the release of “smiley” hormones by your brain. You will feel better and that positive change in your mood will alleviate your pain. Have you heard anything about laughter therapy? Check it out, it definitely works. Once your depression is gone or relieved your brain could ease up on the stress responses and use its power to show you the way out of your fix. Things will get better.

The next time you go on a date, visit your in-laws, or get introduced to new neighbors or co-workers, why wait for the situation to deteriorate? Start smiling from the first hello. Love your life and it will love you back!