wednesday's thoughts on the smile

today i found myself falling into a gross mood (i blame the weather... hehe) so i forced myself to remember something funny and just laugh it off. it kind of worked. then i thought about how many missed opportunities to smile there are!
here are some smiling facts:

• A smile is a universal expression of happiness and recognised as such by all cultures
  
  
• A smile is the most frequently used facial expression It takes as few as five pairs of facial muscles and as many as all 53 to smile
  
  
• Regardless of the precise number of muscles used, smiling causes far fewer muscles to contract and expand than frowning
  
  
• Smiling releases endorphins and makes us feel better
  
  
• Even ‘faking’ a smile can lead to feeling happier
  
  
• People are born with the ability to smile (They don’t copy the expression, even babies who are born blind, smile)
  
  
• Babies reserve special smiles (Duchenne smiles of joy and happiness) for their loved ones
  
  
• A newborn shows a preference for a smiling face over a non-smiling face
  
  
• Women smile more than men
  
  
• Younger people smile more than older American males with high testosterone smile least of all
  
  
• There are 18 different kinds of smile used in a variety of social situations
  
  
• Human beings can differentiate between the ‘felt’ (Duchenne) smile (of joy and happiness) and the social smile – ‘it’s in the eyes’ (literally)
  
  
• A smiling person is judged to be more pleasant, attractive, sincere, sociable, and competent than a non-smiling person
  
  
• A person who studies laughter is called a ‘gelotologist’

(taken from here)

smiling is awesome i recommend you do it :)