Four Reasons for you to Say Cheese

In the August 2011 edition of O Magazine, we found four fun facts that will have you smiling from ear to ear.

• The Bigger You Smile The Longer You Live
Last year researchers studied photos of 230 baseball players out of an older issue of the Baseball Register. They discovered that on average, the players who had larger, "toothy" grins lived 4.9 years longer than the players with smaller, partial grins, and 7 years longer than the players who showed no grin at all. Of course we know that long life spans aren't all because of a big smile, but smiles do reveal positive feelings and positive feelings are related to well being.

• Your Smile Has Subliminal Powers
Study subjects were shown an image of a smiling face for only four milliseconds. (That's too fast for the viewers to consciously register the image.) With that extremely quick flash of the image, subjects experienced a small emotional high. In comparison to the control groups, the subjects who viewed the images of smiles had a more positive outlook on everything: They found boring material more interesting, neutral images appeared more positive, and they even found that bland drinks had a better taste.

• Spread Happiness With Your Smile
After studying social networks, the British Medical Journal found that when one person is happy, the feeling spreads to two people beyond him or her. So, when you smile, your friend is more likely to smile and so is someone they know.

• Smiles are viewed differently around the world
Different cultures focus in on different areas of the face when reading facial expressions. When we look at someone's smile here in the United States, we focus on their mouth. In Japan, they look for expression and emotion in the eyes. The differences even show up in the emoticons that we use.
In the U.S.   :) means happy and :( means sad.
In Japan  (^_^) means happy and (;_;) means sad.