Reason to Smile

Comedian George Burns said that he was advised: “Let a smile be your umbrella.” He said, “I tried that once. I had pneumonia for six weeks and shrunk a $450 suit.”

All right. Maybe it won’t keep you dry in the rain, but there are other good reasons to smile. It’s said that it requires more muscles to frown than to smile, and who wants to overwork their facial muscles? Smiling also puts others at ease and helps establish instant rapport. And if that isn’t enough, when you smile it releases endorphins in your brain and gives you a feeling of well-being and contentment. So if you smile when you don’t feel like it, you’ll soon be smiling just because it feels so good.

Here are a few more reasons to smile:

• Smiling is a universal language that everyone knows.
• People will enjoy being around you when you smile.
• Smiling reduces stress, which may improve your overall health.
• Smiling will change the sound qualities of your voice when you speak or sing.
• A smile costs nothing but gives much. It enriches those who receive it, without making poorer those who give.
• When you smile at a stranger, you just might change a life.
• It takes only a moment, but the memory of it lingers far after the moment has passed.
• A smile cannot be bought, begged, borrowed, or stolen, for it is something that is of no value to anyone until it is given away.
• And finally, some people are too emotionally drained to give you a smile. Give them one of yours, as no one needs a smile so much as one who has no more to give.

Why not give out a few extra smiles today – and be prepared to get some back.

-- Steve Goodier

Image: flickr.com/Tim Zim

Laughter Is Cheap Medicine

I know a couple who works in the pharmaceutical industry. He is a sales representative and she is a pharmacist. When asked what they do for a living, he is quick to reply, "She makes drugs and I sell ‘em."

I believe it was Lord Byron who said, "Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine." And researchers are finding that to be true – quite literally.

A woman diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis wrote to me and talked about how painful the disease had become. Debra said that no drugs would touch the devastating pain. "At times I prayed to die because I did not think I could go on this way," she said. But in two and a half years she weaned herself from most of her medication, which had reached a high of 21 pills a day. This is how she did it.

"I began seeing a doctor who gave me the most important prescription that I ever could have received," she said. "He excused himself from the room. I watched him walking back and forth in the hall; he seemed to be in deep thought."

The doctor came back in with this prescription: he told Debra to get some funny movies and to begin laughing (the doc was a Norman Cousins fan, no doubt). If she didn't feel like laughing, then she should smile. If she didn't feel like smiling, she should smile anyway. He said that it would increase endorphins in her brain and help with her pain. In other words, fake it until you make it, like they say.

She did just as he suggested. She laughed when she could. She smiled when she couldn’t laugh. She smiled whether she felt like it or not. Her children teased her about her fake smile, but she told them that it was going to get rid of her pain.

And here’s the amazing thing: it did. Of course, not all of it, but a great deal of her pain eventually dissipated and in time, what was left became manageable – without all of the drugs.

Today, Debra laughs easily and is never seen without her smile. She says that she would not even feel normal without it.

It’s true that laughter really is cheap medicine. It’s a prescription anyone can afford. And best of all, you can fill it right now.

-- Steve Goodier

Image: freeimages/Jotul Oven

The Smiling Game

It's been said that a smile is the lighting system of the face, the cooling system of the head and the heating system of the heart. But a smile is also a powerful weapon against toxic attitudes of all kinds.

Lisa Gurnsey, of Portland, Oregon, wrote to me about a man whose smile quite literally changed her life: "I was having a horrible day -- hating my job, tired of the weather, tired of trying to keep up on bills, and just completely stressed out. I stopped at the post office in the morning and, as I was entering, an older business man commented to me that it was going to be a good day and life shouldn't be as bad as I make it look. I glared at him and simply said, 'I wish it was Friday.'

"I felt better about my day when I left the post office...that man's smile and comment, although irritating at first, made me think.

"The second time I ran into the man I went out of my way to say 'Happy Friday' to him and to smile. I saw him a few more times and always he was cheery and 'made my day.'

"I looked for him around Christmastime to give him a card and explain how his kind words and smile that very first day made me regroup my thinking and realize I didn't have it so bad. But I have not seen him at the post office since then. I look every morning...I go at different times to see if I can catch him. Maybe he retired, maybe he is ill. I think to myself, 'I wish I had thanked him for being a kind person.' I can honestly say this man changed my life. I will work to spread that same feeling to those I see in need of a smile."

We can never know the impact a simple smile has on another. Smiling is one of the easiest things we can do. Is there a simpler, more effortless way to give everyone you meet a moment of joy, even a sense of worth?

Speaker Josh Hinds makes this suggestion: "Play the smiling game in your daily life. See how many people you can get to smile back at you. Keep score and tally the results at the end of each day."

That sounds like a game we can all play. The rules are simple. There are lots of winners. And who knows? You just might "make" someone's day -- even if that someone is you.

-- Steve Goodier

Image: freeimages/godoflite

One of the Best Things I Can Do with My Lips

I am told that the muscles of the face are capable of over 250,000 different combinations of expressions. And one of the most useful is a smile. And though I’m a fan of kissing, I appreciate that smiling is still one of the best things I can do with my lips.

Sometimes I hear or read something that is so true I know I will never forget it. One of those gems is an observation from Fulton J. Sheen, who said, “A smile across the aisle of a bus in the morning could save a suicide later in the day.” Over the years, I’ve come to realize the magnitude and truth in that statement. People NEED the healing medicine of the heart that just a smile, even from strangers, provides. In fact, we all need it. And for some folks, that medicine can save a life.

One psychiatrist puts it like this. Dr. Thomas Malone, of Atlanta, Georgia, says, “In my practice at the Atlanta Psychiatric Clinic, people sometimes ask me what psychiatry is all about. To me, the answer is increasingly clear. Almost every emotional problem can be summed up in one particular bit of behavior -- it's a person walking around screaming, ‘For God's sake, love me!’ Love me, that’s all. He goes through a million different manipulations to get somebody to love him.” (Thanks to Dr. James Moore for the quote.)

I think he says something I need to hear. He is saying that at the core of our being is a need for someone to care. And if that itch is not scratched, we go to great lengths to satisfy it.

But I’ve noticed something else, too. It appears to me that some of the healthiest people around seem to spend less time trying to scratch an itch to be loved, and more time looking for people to reach out to. These are the ones who are most likely to smile across the aisle of a bus. They understand that everyone is fighting some kind of battle, even if they hide it well. And if they were to express their personal life mission, it might include something like, “I try to always love the people I encounter along life’s path.”

They never say they can't make a difference. They never say they have nothing to contribute. They always know that, even if they have nothing else, they can always give a smile, spontaneously and sincerely. A smile may not seem like much, but it can be a warm blanket on a cold night. And for a while, anyway, if can soothe the itch to be loved.

My smile may not save a life, but it might save a day. And if not, it’s still one of the best things I can do with my lips.

-- Steve Goodier

Image: flickr.com/Thomas Hawk