Every year the first Friday in October is World Smile Day. Here during the first party of 2007 … [+]
It’s Friday, which might make you smile because it’s, you know, Friday. And “Everyone’s looking forward to the weekend,” as that Rebecca Black song from 2011 goes. But on this particular Friday, there’s another reason to turn that frown on its head. It’s World Smile Day, just as it has been the first Friday of October every year since 1999. This is the day dedicated to smiles and random acts of kindness. And given the potential health benefits of smiling, your smile can also be a non-random act of kindness to yourself.
What specifically should you do on this day? Well, the World Smile Day website has the following motto: “Do an act of kindness. Help one person smile!” It also mentions events that took place in Worcester, Massachusetts, where the yellow smiley face was first created, on various World Smile Days. They ranged from the presentation of smile certificates to the unveiling of the world’s largest human face-to-cake smiley competition. There have also been events around the world, such as delivering meals and smileys to those in need and holding smile events in hospitals. Then there’s the hashtag #worldsmileday, which you can use on social media, especially when someone posts about how stupid you are.
If you’re really into this day, you know everything Harvey Ball did to get this day started. He is the man who first designed that iconic yellow smiley face in 1963. (No, Forest Gump had nothing to do with it, regardless of what you saw in that movie, because Gump wasn’t real.) A commercial artist from Worcester, Ball originally created the image for an advertising campaign for State Mutual Life Insurance. But this design soon took on a life of its own and eventually spread like it did everywhere. After seeing what he believed was the over-commercialization of his symbol, Ball wanted to restore its original meaning and intent by declaring that the first Friday in October each year is World Smile Day. The first such day took place in 1999. After Balls’ death in 2001, the later-established Harvey Ball World Smile Foundation took over the mantle as the day’s official sponsor.
Smiling can be an expression of approval, happiness, warmth, compassion, a sense of connection or… … [+]
World Smile Day should commemorate the good kind of smile, not the kind of smile The Joker does when he lowers Batman into a pool of acid. It is also not about the smile that people show when they are contemptuous, narcissistic, smug or want to exert their dominance over others. No, World Smile Day is about the right kind of smile when someone expresses approval, happiness, warmth, compassion, a sense of belonging or other positive feelings.
Now you’re more likely to smile when things are going well for you. But there is evidence that smiling alone can make you feel better. For example, it can make you appear friendlier and more approachable. After all, it may not be common for people to say, “I like it when you glare at me.” Smiling can also make you look more attractive. That’s why “smile” is more often said just before a photo is taken than “frown.” In fact, smiling can even make you look more successful. For example, a gold medalist is likely to smile more often after a race than someone who finished in 35th place.
That’s not all. Smiling itself can cause the release of various endorphins and neurotransmitters in your body. Studies have suggested that this can in turn lead to a range of different health benefits, such as reducing pain, blood pressure and feelings of stress. It can also boost your mood and immune system. In reality, one study published in the journal Psychological Sciences found that those who smiled more often were more likely to live longer. Of course, such an association alone does not prove that smiling has helped extend people’s lives. It may be that people who lived longer smiled because life was easier for them.
Nevertheless, there is some evidence that even forcing yourself to smile when you don’t necessarily want to can be helpful. In a study described by a publication in Psychological ScienceTara L. Kraft and Sarah D. Pressman of the University of Kansas had 170 study participants perform two different stressful tasks and found that people had lower heart rates when recovering from stress while smiling, compared to maintaining a neutral expression. This was true even when people were forced to smile with sticks in their mouths and were not aware that they were smiling. So when you are faced with a difficult situation, you may want to grin and bear it.
Finally, there are indications that smiling in a good way can be a bit like COVID-19: it can be quite contagious. When one person laughs, others around that person are more likely to do so too. This is due to autonomic facial expressions, our tendency to imitate the facial expressions of others. as described in a review article in Trends in cognitive science.
So if you wear a smile on World Smile Day, who knows how many other people you will ultimately impact? You may or may not be in love this Friday, regardless of what The Cure sang. But by smiling you can spread some love to others and also to yourself.