Smiling Does The Body Good

Researchers say it takes 43 muscles to frown and only 17 muscles to smile, so why don't people smile more often?  This is a question I ponder quite often as I go about my daily activities in life -- taking the metro to work, dropping the kids off at school, interacting with coworkers, running errands on the weekend, and so forth.  More and more I observe that people just don't seem to have a friendly, happy feeling about their existence.  They tend to frown much more often than they smile.  Is it the economy?  Or did this sense of unhappiness begin long before the economic downfall?  Is it simply that we live in different times and people are so focused on what is happening in their own lives that they are oblivious to others around them?  Or perhaps the fact that as a society we are always staring down (at a Blackberry or laptop) or have our heads pressed against a cell phone preventing us from making eye contact and engaging in a polite smile with others.  In any event, it sure would be nice to be greeted with a pleasant smile from someone, ANYONE, tomorrow morning on my way to work... or the next time I'm at the mall or the grocery store with my kids screaming and hollering.  Smiling does the body good, is much easier than frowning, and is contagious.  So, the next time you think about smiling at someone...  instead of resisting the urge, JUST DO IT!  You will be surprised at how good it makes you (and the other person) feel.

Cheryl