Smile More!

Live Longer, Boost Your Mood...

Did you know that on average, children smile about 400 times per day? If you’ve ever spent much time around younger kids, this isn’t surprising. Kids are smiling all the time! But the number of smiles we enjoy tends to decrease dramatically over time. Around 15% of adults only smile five times a day. Just five smiles in a day! How depressing is that?

That is just the start of the wild things I learned about smiling when Dr. Phill Kraver joined me on “The HartBeat Show.” Dr. Kraver is a dentist from Cape Coral. When he approached me about sharing his presentation “The Science of the Smile” on my podcast, I was all in. I’m the kind of guy who smiles pretty often, but I was shocked by how much I didn’t know about how smiling can affect your health, your mood, and other people’s moods, too!

The True Smile Humans have been smiling for as long as we’ve been around, but it wasn’t until the 1800s that scientists really started researching the smile.

“In the 1800s, there were really no laws or rules for doing science,” Dr. Kraver said. “So this French guy, Guillaume Duchenne, began putting electrodes on people’s faces. Duchenne was an anatomist, and he was trying to figure out which muscles actually made you smile. He hooked electrodes to peoples' cheeks, their faces, all over the place, and he was able to identify where their smile muscles originated from. What he found is the ‘true smile.’ This kind of smile, the best smile ever, where all your smile muscles are engaged, is what we call the Duchenne Smile.”

Dr. Kraver explained that the Duchenne smile is basically a real smile. It’s not just a social smile where only your lips are smiling. A Duchenne smile really lights up the whole face, engaging the cheeks and the eyes. It’s this kind of big smile that actually leads to crow’s feet later in life! This sounds like a bummer, but Dr. Kraver pointed out that crow’s feet are a sign that you spent a lot of time smiling. And the good news is that true Duchenne smiles don’t just give you wrinkles — they also improve your health.

Smiles Hit a Home Run In a 2010 study at Wayne State University, researchers analyzed 230 baseball cards, measuring the smile of each player. They found that the players with the biggest smiles, Duchenne smiles, not only tended to have longer careers, but on average, they also lived longer. Players with Duchenne smiles lived to an average age of 80 years old. Meanwhile, players with no smile lived to around 73. That’s a seven-year difference! In addition to making us appear more attractive and confident to other people, smiling also improves our health.

Fake It ‘Til You Make It All of this is great, but how are you supposed to get the advantages of smiling if you just don’t feel like smiling these days? Well, Dr. Kraver introduced me to a quote from a Buddhist monk named Thich Nhat Hanh: “Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smiles can be the source of your joy.”

“This quote has been proven by science in multiple studies,” Dr. Kraver explained. “Every time you smile a true Duchenne smile, your brain goes nuts. It secretes dopamine and serotonin. These are the same chemicals secreted when we have pleasure. One study I read found that in one dose of a Duchenne smile, the amount of dopamine and serotonin secreted by the brain is more than you’d get from 2,000 bars of chocolate.”

Research shows that even faking a smile can make you feel happier. Dr. Kraver pointed out how we can use this phenomenon to our advantage.

“Your brain is just a bag of goo,” he said. “And it’s trainable. You can make it a habit to smile in most situations. […] It’s not always easy to control your emotions, but you can always control your facial muscles.”

Dr. Kraver also pointed out how seeing other people smiling can make us feel happier. Think about it: Just smiling at someone else can improve their day. That’s wild!

No Such Thing as Perfect I really liked talking to Dr. Kraver because he’s not the kind of dentist who insists that everyone has to have perfect teeth. He preaches the importance of being yourself. Even when we discussed how dentistry can help improve a smile, he really reinforced the idea that “perfect” teeth aren’t what makes a great smile.

“As long as teeth are healthy, with no cavities or periodontal disease, then that’s great. If your teeth are a little rotated or a little discolored, you can still rock a smile. Don’t worry. Don’t get so self-conscious about yourself.”

“Beauty is fleeting, but you can always hold onto your attitude,” Dr. Kraver continued. “That’s what is actually going to draw more people to you. I’ve never seen someone’s teeth draw a friend to them. You don’t make new friends just because you have nice teeth. It’s the way you display your teeth and handle yourself. It’s your personality that makes a difference. […] Smile more. Be conscious about it. There are a lot of times in life when you can get down on yourself, but you can lift yourself out of those problems by just smiling more. It’s proven by science.”

It was really cool to sit down and talk with Dr. Kraver. My favorite part of the presentation was when Dr. Kraver brought up some before and after shots of celebrities' smiles. These pictures are the reason why I recommend watching this episode of “The HartBeat Show” on YouTube instead of just listening to it. You have to see these pictures. Have you ever noticed how Morgan Freeman’s teeth look in “The Shawshank Redemption”? It’s unbelievable!

You can see “The Science of the Smile” presentation for yourself on my YouTube channel. Just search for Tim Hart! And if you want to chat with Dr. Phill Kraver about your smile, you can find him at Cape Dental Care in Cape Coral.