A bright smile can be a powerful way to make someone’s day and your own. It’s a simple reaction or purposeful gesture that can have incredible consequences through its variety and motivation. The benefits have been proven to be endless for one’s physical and emotional health, but they certainly do not stop there. The social aspect is just as important, and can improve the quality of one’s life and relationship with others.
Everyone knows that smiling arrives with perks such as stress relief, makes us look younger, releases endorphins that cause happiness, lowers anxiety, and is actually contagious. It can prompt a response from others around us, caught in a symbiotic relationship of returning expressions that serve to make our day better. It’s a true powerhouse of social interactions, one that can have dramatic effects on how we are viewed by those around us.
Confident and Successful
The simple act of smiling makes us appear more confident in our everyday lives and competent at our jobs as well. The genuine upturn of our lips can make us look friendlier, especially toward clients and customers. They will gain more trust in our abilities and be convinced by the friendly approach. In fact, studies have shown that it can make a person look successful if they are smiling. This is especially the case for some industries, such as retail, where it can increase the number of sales and earn higher tips.
Approachable and Polite
Smiling will make you look far more approachable, and will encourage others to engage in a conversation with you. Such a simple expression can speak volumes to those around you. It’s inviting and open, showing your willingness to talk to others. Sometimes, it can be a useful sign of politeness, a subtle way of denoting your acknowledgment and interest to the simplest of things. People naturally react better to others who smile when announcing even mundane things, like finding a coupon or hearing a good song on the radio. It’s straightforward and powerful.
Trustworthy
One smile can inspire trust. It will improve your credibility, and there’s truly no easier way to do it. Genuine smiles send the message of being trustworthy, along with being willing and able to cooperate with others. It leads to people being rated by complete strangers as having a more generous and extroverted personality. It’s an incredible way of gaining a bit of trust, which is so difficult to earn in this day and age. It has been found to increase others’ willingness to trust in you by a calculated 10%. And all you have to do is smile.
A Good Leader
Smiling is the key to success when you’re in a position of power. It’s an effective leadership technique that increases other people’s trust in your capabilities and enhances your management skills. A smile can speak to people. It can tell of your relaxation in your role as a leader and your ability to successfully communicate with others. This will, in turn, denote your strong leadership skills and openness to their input.
Attractive
It may be obvious to some, but while smiling does make you look more empathetic and approachable, it also heightens the attraction factor. It can make you look more attractive, and can be a genuine influence on the way people treat you. Studies have shown that both men and women are naturally drawn to others who make eye contact and smile at the same time. It’s even more powerful for women. A smile can have magical qualities for the fairer sex. When making only eye contact, they are likely to be approached 20% of the time by men. However, when combined with a smile, the chances spike to 60%.
Forgivable
Sometimes, smiling is a reflex. Others, it’s a purposeful gesture done with a specific reason in mind. It has tremendous capabilities of offering us leniency in the case of mistakes or even social slip-ups. When caught doing something wrong, people often smile, and it’s for a good reason. You are more likely to find forgiveness with a smile, no matter the level of its authenticity. Be it genuine or fake, smiles are gestures that make our actions more forgivable and even make up for the embarrassing moments when you’ve slipped on the metaphorical social banana.
One smile can have exceptional results. It may depend on the situation and the person on the other end, but it’s a true powerhouse that can impact social interactions. Be it between friends, family, or complete strangers, smiling has subtle capabilities of great influence that should never be underestimated.
Photo Credit
Photo is from depositphotos.com
Guest Author Bio
Ethel Huizar
Ethel Huizar is a Contributing Editor at Healthrow.net and a University of Colorado graduate. Ethel does what she enjoys most: writing original articles related to health problems. Her lifetime passions – science and nature – became part of her job.
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