The One Thing You Can Do to Decrease Stress and Improve Your Life

Smile 2 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Are there people in your life who always seem in a bad mood?  Maybe it's a co-worker.  Maybe it's someone in your family.  Maybe it's YOU?  What if I could tell you a simple, one-step, one-action cure for this problem?  What if I could tell you something that you could do that is such a basic biological action that even babies in the womb do it?  What if I told you that simply by doing this you could significantly increase your life span, improve your mood and relieve stress while appearing more likable, courteous and competent? Even better, what if I told you you wouldn't have to change your diet or increase your activity level?  Oh yes, and it's completely free!

You'd think I was kidding right?  Watch Ron Gutman giving his TED talk in the video below.

While some of the research he reports seems amazing, even unlikely, I bet if you really think about it you know that a smile can make a significant difference in a person's interactions with others.  I see it everyday in my work.  Teachers who smile at students first thing in the morning as they come into the classroom and through out the day as they teach not only have improved interactions with the students in their classrooms but are also perceived as better teachers by parents and peers.  Gutman reports research that validates this;  people who smile appear to be more likable, courteous and competent. In addition, smiling is contagious, so simply by smiling you can improve the mood of everyone you come in contact with.

Children are naturals at smiling.  Gutman reports that many children smile more than 400 times a day!  No wonder just being around a young child can lift our spirits and give us a new attitude.  

Smiling arouses emotions in our brain. We feel better when we smile because the act stimulates the brain reward mechanism.  According to Gutman, one smile creates the same positive brain stimulation as eating 2,000 bars of chocolate or as receiving $25,000 in cash!  We can feel rich everyday with very little effort and no additional calories!  Smiling increases mood enhancing hormones such as endorphin in our brain, relieves stress and can reduce blood pressure.

What amazing power we all have with such a simple activity!  Are you using this ability to your advantage?  If you tallied how many times you smiled today what would you discover?  

Like this post?  Share with friends on facebook and twitter to give them a smile!

Related articles

• Smiling to Improve your Health!
• Ron Gutman: The hidden power of smiling
• Physically expressing an emotion - such as smiling - can trigger happiness.

Who Do You Call On InTimes Of Trouble?

Image by madhavaji via FlickrIf you are stressed out, awash in personal or career problems, just suffered a major loss of any kind, or don't think you can cope another minute with life's challenges, what is the single most important thing that you can do?  Develop a plan?  Read a self-help book?  Get a good night's sleep?  Exercise?  Well, all those things are definitely important but the single most efffective thing you can do is develop and rely on a social network.  In other words, talk to someone who cares!  Nothing relieves the pain and stress, nothing puts life in the proper perspective, nothing calms us, like a caring conversation with another person.  Not only does our personal experience prove this, but study after study has shown it to be true.as well.

One example of this is a study known as "Very Happy People"  where researchers investigated the characteristics of the happiest ten percent among us.  They looked at wealth, geographic location, physcial ability and many other factors.  What was the conclusion?  The only characteristic that distinguished the happiest ten percent from everyone else was the strength of their social support system.  In another study of Harvard undergraduates where researchers compared such factors  as GPA, family income, SAT scores, age, gender and race with the individuals' happiness level, again the best predictor of their overall happiness was the level of social support. I bet many of you are thinking this is just common sense. We've all experienced this in our own lives.

If that is true, then why is it that when people get in crisis they actually pull away from their social network? There are many reasons :  we think that we would be a burden to others, we think that no one else could understand our problems, we think that others might think less of us in some way if they knew of our problems, we think we would be gossiping or 'sharing our dirty laundry.  However, I personally have found time and time again that a problem shared is a problem that loses it's power to control me emotionally.  A problem shared is a problem that becomes smaller and smaller until I finally have the means or the strength to cope with it myself. So what about you?  Are you sharing with your circle of family and friends in times of trouble?