Smile - The Curve That Sets Everything Straight :-)

Smile - An expression of the face like that with which a laugh begins, indicating natural pleasure, moderate joy, approbation, amusement, or kindliness, but also sometimes amused or supercilious contempt, pity, disdain, hypocritical complaisance, or the like.

Babies are born with the ability to smile. Psychology says that blind people, who haven't seen what a smile is like, can smile, because smiling is naturally hardwired in us. But with the growing age, people tend to indulge in the intricacies of life, reducing their smile; a natural expression of dealing with things. This is rather unfortunate and becoming increasingly common. So, here are some smile-facts to lighten up your day:

• Smile is the most recognised human expression; even at 300 ft.

• Our body releases endorphin when we smile, relieving the stress.

• Not only will thoseendorphinselevate your mood, but they will also lower your blood pressure — so essentially, smiles save lives!

• One can even trick the mind to believe she's happy by forcing oneself to smile! But remember to not fake it, but simulate a genuine smile. Hence, we always have a natural mood-lifter with us.

• Smile is the psychological symbol of strength; the universal expression of happiness. It has been found that happy people tend to smile 40-50 times a day, while average figure for the same is 20.

• Have you ever tried to frown at someone who responded your gesture with a smile? You must've found it harder to frown and felt your lips curling up spontaneously. This happens because smiling is contagious! This is because we have mirror neurons that fire when we see action, i.e., they enable us to copy or reflect the behavior we observe in others and have been linked to the capacity for empathy.

• Smile is the most beautiful accessory one can wear; it makes us look attractive and pleasant to others. Researchs have shown that more than 60% people find a smiling woman to be more beautiful than that same one sans smile but with make-up.

• Researchers have identified about 19 different types of smiles! Generally, one can distinguish between a genuine and a fake smile by looking at that person's eyes. A genuine, heartfelt smile involves more muscle movement on both sides of the face, like crinkling of eyes, appearance of dimples, eyc,. Whereas, a fake or polite-for-the-sake-of-appearance smile engages fewer muscles and doesn't reach the person's eyes.

• Also, genuine smiles — where you smile big enough to squint your eyes — boosts yourimmune system by decreasing cortisol in you body.

• Those who smile tend to be thought of as having more confidence and sociable, therefore managers view these people as having what it takes to move up in the workplace.

• While smiling, we can use 5-53 muscles; smile, therefore, is also a form of exercise to work our facial muscles.

• As hard as its to believe, but the fact that smiling on phone makes you sound friendlier is true!

• In the context of smile, one can not not mention smilies. The smiley face was created to mark alighter or sarcastic tone in the simple text messagesand avoid misunderstandings and fights. The earliest known designer of the smiley isHarvey Ball.

• World Smile Day is celebrated on the first Friday of October every year, to mark the creation of the smiley face by Harvey Ball in 1963.