Smiling is capable of benefitting your health in a variety of ways. If your teeth have health or cosmetic issues, you will be less likely to smile on a regular basis. This can cause you to feel self-conscious and not obtain the benefits of smiling frequently. Understanding the benefits of smiling can help you to understand the importance of taking superior care of your teeth.
Smiling Benefits
If you have been told “to smile”, there is a good chance that smiling was the last thing you wanted to do. However, there are multiple benefits to increasing the frequency of your smiles. These smiles don’t even necessarily have to be genuine, as the brain reads the muscle function to provide these benefits. Here are just a few of the ways in which smiling benefits your health.
Improves Mood
Smiling can immediately take your mood from negative to positive. Even if you don’t genuinely feel like smiling, just the physical act of doing so can cause your body to release feel-good neurotransmitters that can instantly boost your mood. Smiling regularly can help to combat feelings of depression, lower levels of stress, and provide a broad array of other benefits. Taking the steps to smile more frequently can help to ensure that you remain in a far more positive mindset.
Aids in Better Relationships
The relationships that you form with other people tend to have a large impact on your mental and emotional health. When you smile frequently, you are increasing the positivity of others around you. Smiling also indicates that you are more approachable, which increases your capacity to meet new people. Smiling increases your appearance of trustworthiness. This can further help to form better relationships with the other people in your life.
Rewire your Brain
The brain has the incredible capability of changing and rewiring itself based on experiences that it has regularly. When you smile frequently, you can improve your positivity. When this is done often enough, it can rewire the brain to make positivity the new standard. If you smile regularly, you can help to ensure that positivity becomes a more permanent state of your life.
Productivity Boost
Productivity is often an important component of work. When you feel like you are being unproductive, it is likely that you will simply feel more stressed and be less inclined to be productive. Smiling tends to improve your mood. This typically leads to you being more confident in the work that you complete, which then results in working harder. The more productive you are, the less stress you will experience and the happier you will be. This is just one of the many benefits that smiling provides.
Reduce Stress and Release Negative Emotions
Stress and negative emotions are a common part of life. These emotions can lead to physical health problems, so it is important to take whatever steps possible to manage your levels of stress. Smiling regularly helps to reduce stress levels, because of the neurotransmitters that the body releases when you smile. The body often releases endorphins, serotonin, and dopamine, which improve the mood and help to release negative emotions.
Help Reduce Pain Levels
Pain is likely to put you in a less than pleasant mood and the last thing you will want to do is smile. However, smiling does release effective natural painkillers to help handle pain. Implementing these natural painkillers can go a long way toward relieving your pain and restoring your mood to its prior condition. Natural pain relief is just one of the incredible ways that smiles can improve the physical and mental health.
Enhance the Immune System
Smiling has been shown to substantially increase the capabilities of the immune system. When your immune system doesn’t function effectively, it will become far easier to get sick or have an injury become infected. Smiling helps to increase the presence of infection fighting antibodies, as well as creates more immune cells. This can ensure that your immune system functions far more effectively and is capable of providing superior protection for your health.
Tips for Smiling more Often
Smiling more frequently provides many benefits, but it can be difficult to force yourself to smile when you don’t feel like doing so. Making yourself smile can still provide many of the same benefits, as your brain doesn’t differentiate between genuine smiles and fake smiles. If you want to genuinely make yourself smile, you can take some time to do something that you enjoy or watch a funny TV show. In addition to this, your surroundings have a substantial impact on your overall mood. If you surround yourself with positive, cheerful people, you are more likely to want to smile.
Caring for your teeth is incredibly important when you want to smile more often. If your smile is less than ideal, you will likely feel embarrassed about smiling and will, therefore, smile less often. There are many steps that you can take to protect your teeth. Many common cosmetic procedures can substantially improve the appearance of your teeth and create a beautiful smile. For example, dental veneers can be adhered to the teeth and immediately improve their appearance. Professional tooth whitening services can help to fight the appearance of stains and create a smile you’ll love to show off. Other dental services, such as regular dental cleanings and having missing teeth replaced, can similarly help to ensure that you are excited about your smile.
Contact Our Experts
Here at Mills River Family Dental, we are passionate about providing you with the services that you need to protect the health of your teeth. When your teeth are healthy, you will be more likely to smile, which will provide all of these benefits. From cosmetic procedures to general dental care, we provide the services that you need to keep your smile beautiful and healthy. To learn more about our dental services and how they can be used to improve your confidence in your smile, contact our experts today!
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