At Lakeshore Dental Care, our Hamburg dentists provide you with a smile you can be proud of. Outside of improving your overall health, a healthy smile has some unexpected benefits as well. Here are some of the great ways your smile can transform your life.
Relieves Your Stress
One of the amazing effects smiling has is the way it affects your response to stress. When you smile, it helps you handle difficult and stressful situations easier. While a fake smile does help, a more genuine and authentic smile is an even greater stress reliever. Everyone has to deal with stress on a daily basis, but smiling can help make things easier.
Improve Your Mood
Smiling is a symbol of happiness across cultures around the globe. When we are happy our natural response is to smile. That said, did you know the opposite can also be true? When we choose to smile and laugh it has powerful effects on our mood.
One study found that just the act of smiling can improve your mood and that laughing has an even stronger effect. While suppressing your emotions is not healthy, finding ways to smile in addition to surrounding yourself with people that make you laugh will change you for the better.
Smiling is Contagious
People pick up on your emotions and copy the facial expressions you display. This phenomenon is known as facial mimicry. The emotions you display have a powerful impact on the people around you and smiling has an infectious nature to it that spreads joy to the people in your life.
When you are angry, sad, and of course happy, others pick up on your emotions. The great news is that you can use this natural psychological function to positively impact the people around you. When you smile it’s contagious and helps to lift the mood of the people in your life.
Live a Longer Life
Smiling isn’t just good for your mood either, it may even help you live longer. In a study out of Wayne University, researchers analyzed the facial expressions of players from the 1952 baseball registry. Using photographs, researchers separated players into three groups: no smile, a partial smile, and a full authentic smile.
Players in the partial smile group lived an average of 2.1 years longer than the no smile group and the full smile group lived an average of seven years longer than the no smile group. Smiling is a powerful indicator of longevity and is important for both physical and psychological health.
Helps You Become Successful
Positive and happy people are pleasant to be around and have a tendency to get ahead in life. A study from the University of California, Berkeley analyzed the women of Mills College using the school’s yearbook photos from 1958 and 1960. They tracked the women across time in categories including marriage, career, and family.
The women with more authentic smiles tended to have more positive outcomes down the road. On average, they tended to get married more often and were more likely to have higher levels of personal well-being than the women with less authentic smiles. It is truly amazing to see the power of positivity and a great smile.
Visit Lakeshore Dental Care
We are here to help our Hamburg patients achieve smiles that can keep up with their busy lifestyles. Our dental team wants you to be happy, stay healthy, and build long-lasting relationships. Our mission is to help you achieve your goals with the smile of your dreams.
At Lakeshore Dental Care, we provide a variety of dental services including teeth whitening, hygiene services, TMD treatment, and dental implants. We have the knowledge and experience to make your smile a success. Schedule your next visit today!