Say cheese! This week I explored the magical powers of smiling. I had a very stressful week, so this exercise ended up being more of a coping mechanism. The rules I made for myself were: wake up and smile, when I felt sad or frustrated I had to smile, before I go anywhere I had to smile, and smile once before I went to bed. I chose to go through this “smile therapy” in an attempt to be happier, which I believe to be a very important step to raising my self esteem and nurturing my confidence.

I first learned about the benefits of smiling through family members constantly telling me to “smile” or to “brighten up.” I am not a naturally smiley person, and that doesn’t mean that I am not happy! There are some people who are smiley people, and there are some people who aren’t. There is no judgement either way. However, I began to research why smiling is so important. I found that smiling boosts productivity, decreases stress, but most importantly smiles improve your mood even if they are fake smiles (Hall). I was amazed to see the number of benefits that smiling brings you, but I wanted to focus on improving my well being. I wanted to utilize the effects of de-stressing and increasing my mood.

At the beginning of the week, I had a lot of fake smiles that would slowly turn into real smiles. On Monday, I received my test scores from a quiz, they were less than ideal, but I smiled through it. At first, I was smiling out of spite almost. It was like when I was younger and my mom would tell me to breathe. I would complete the task with no hope that there would be a result. I wanted to be mad and beat myself up for not studying hard enough, but instead I smiled. I had to smile for a long time in order to adjust my mood. Slowly, I could feel the anger leaving my body, it was almost like my shoulders had released all of their tension. That was my first mood change after I smiled. I was much calmer and I felt like I thought more rationally, I realized that one quiz grade does not

define me as a student. As the week progressed, my smiles started to feel more genuine. I even began to laugh after smiling for a while. My week did not get better, but my outlook improved. I started to realize that while I don’t need to smile every time, sometimes tricking your brain into thinking that you were happy could make you happy. So, if you are ever in a situation where you need a little pick me up: just smile. Think of something happy no matter how down you feel. Take a step back and get a new perspective.

Hall, Alena. “11 Surprising Reasons You Should Smile Every Day.” HuffPost, HuffPost, 7 Dec. 2017, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/smiling-benefits_n_6598840.