When our eldest daughter was a senior in high school, we got two pieces of news two days before Easter. My daughter’s financial package for the college of her choice arrived with scholarship awards included (yeah!) and my husband was fired from his job as second in command of a mid-sized manufacturing company (ouch!). It took only a few hours to decide to continue with our plans for the family vacation in Florida. We had a free condo waiting on the beach and there wasn’t anything we could do immediately about the job loss so we packed up and drove from Rochester New York to St. Augustine Florida.
During that 20-hour drive, we heard a song that became our mantra—Bobby McFerrin’s Don’t Worry Be Happy. When the song came on the radio, we cranked up the volume and swayed side-to-side as we belted it out. We especially loved the “do, do, do, do, do, do, do-doo, do-doo, doo-doo’s.” We heard that song dozens of times on that vacation. It lifted our spirits. And it caused us to smile every time it played.
Job loss is one of the stressors in life that can have significant negative health consequences. Luckily for us, smiling has significant health benefits. New research proves that smiling not only improves your sense of joy and satisfaction, it can also extend your life.
The power of a simple smile
Ron Gutman, a health researcher and founder/ CEO of the health information website Health Tap, believes smiling has super-powers. He recounts studies proving that the span of someone’s smile (in a college yearbook or on a baseball card) enabled researchers to predict a person’s life span as well as how long-lasting someone’s marriage would be, and how successful they would be. The broader the smile, the longer the life, the happier the marriage, and the happier the subject would score on a standardized test of well-being. On top of all that goodness, smiling makes you look more competent and inspiring to others.
The cool thing about a smile it that it is free, it has compounding benefits (just smile at someone and watch their face light up), and it makes us feel better. Since facial expressions can change the hormones coursing through our bodies (see body language post), turning that frown upside down can literally change how we perceive what is happening in our lives.
When we spent that week in Florida singing Don’t Worry Be Happy, smiling and laughing through the renditions that became more expressive with each run-through, we were able to return home with a sense of hope that all would be well. We had no idea how, but we knew it was true. Smiling through the stress kept our minds clear so that we could see our losses as opportunities. And to this day, that little ditty has the power to make every member of our family smile.
Life is sometimes hard. But it is also a gift given with each new dawn. So make a habit of smiling especially when times are tough. Smile at the homeless person, at the person checking out your groceries, at your coworkers, at your partner/spouse, at your children.
And if you don’t have a child in your life to share a smile with (children smile up to 400 times a day – and since smiles are contagious, kids are great to have around), watch some of those cute cats on YouTube.
Smiling will make you feel better even if you’re smiling alone.
Live long. SMILE.