Arushi - Week 10 - Smile! You're on Camera
Different things make different people happy. A plushie makes me happy, but maybe a piece of chocolate or a warm hug makes you happy. We might like different things, but what we share in our little moments of joy are our smiles. Without fail, we all express our content with a smile, a grin, or a maybe even a smirk. Most of us believe that the rest of our day is all sunshine 🌅 and rainbows 🌈 because of a certain object or situation that made us happy, but it's usually only because of that split second smile.
The "this is the best day I've ever had!!!!" 🎉 feeling can be traced back to the neurological effects a smile incites. In short, a smile can increase mood-enhancing hormones while decreasing hormones like cortisol and adrenaline that contribute to stress. When you smile, you also exercise muscles that trigger your brain to release more endorphins, which further relieve pain and stress.
Smiling has also been proven to help you live a longer life. In fact, it's directly related to a lower risk of death from infections or even cancer. When you smile a lot, you're more likely to be a more optimistic person, so you are bound to make it to at least 85 years old. 👵 Smiling also really affects how you are perceived by your peers. If you smile a lot, people are more likely to think of you positively and would generally prefer to befriend you. 👥
But honestly, I feel like you shouldn't just force yourself to smile more just because it's good for you. That would just take the point of smiling away. You're forcing yourself to feel happy, and we all know that we usually end up hating what we force ourselves to do. ❌ But I think smiling is a great pick-me-up in particularly hard situations. Someone once told me to smile for ten seconds when I'm feeling down or when I'm feeling really nervous. I do it sometimes before walking into a classroom to take a major test, and I find that it makes me more confident in myself. 📚 It doesn't work amazing miracles, but that's perfectly fine. I would still say that it's useful to try out, because it won't exactly do you any harm. But ultimately, do what you will and do what makes you happy!
I hope that the next time you see a little sign about a camera, you smile confidently, and whenever you encounter a signal stop that asks you to dance, you do a little happy dance. Smiling is the one infection that I hope everyone has to "suffer" through. 😁
I found it pretty cool how you tried to connect the appearance of your blog to the theme that you were investigating: the happiness that smiling induces. You added several emojis, such as one to represent sunshine, one for a rainbow, and one displaying a person smiling to end your blog. I appreciated how you separated your blog into brief paragraphs based on their ideas, which made it significantly easier to read. Overall, I liked the content of your blog, which is extremely relevant to us teenagers. Whether it is tests, homework, school sports, clubs, or having to balance various extracurricular activities into our busy schedules, we constantly encounter stress and it is easy to forget to take care of ourselves. I liked how informative your blog was and how you incorporated the scientific benefits of smiling. For example, you discussed how smiling promotes the release of endorphins, specialized hormones that serve to alleviate pain and stress, and also how it diminishes the presence of stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. You also touched upon the long-term effects of smiling, as you brought up how those who smile often usually die at only the age of 85 or later. I am truly convinced to smile more, and I will certainly start putting it into practice.
ReplyDeleteHi Arushi! I loved how you started your blog by describing the different things that make people happy. It sets the scene for how truly versatile happiness is in its nature. It can be felt in many different ways, and caused by many different things. It was intriguing to learn about why exactly smiling is good for you, as we are always told to smile more, but we never truly explore the scientific reason why. Your explanation of the neurological effects induced by smiling made your blog all the more effective, and I know I'll definitely be smiling more.
ReplyDeleteHi Arushi! I found your blog to be extremely informative and interesting! Firstly, I like how you separated each section into smaller sections to make it easier to digest the information you provide. I also enjoyed your use of different emojis to convey specific messages. In fact, the emojis you used definitely brought a smile to my face!
ReplyDeleteI find your message to be extremely interesting because one of my teachers last year used to tell me this every day. She would include nice messages on tests and always draw a smiley face in the left hand corner because she found a study that proved that seeing a smile relieves stress. It is amazing how subtle images and feelings can drastically change our whole mood!
Next time, I am extremely stressed out, I will remember to stop and smile because like you said, it might not solve the issue but it will take a little bit of my worries away. Your blog also reminds me of another one I read this week by Jessica about Dad Jokes and the power of laughing! In general, I learned that laughing and smiling can be one of the most powerful things we can do! Thank you for your educational blog!