You’re going to smile today. Maybe not right now, and maybe not in the next hour or two, but sometime today whether you realize it or not something will make you smile. A smile is the best way to tell that a person is happy, excited, content, or any other kind of positive mood. But did you know that your grin could be your ticket to a long life?
If you just grinned at the thought of a longer life, you have already helped yourself. According to Lip Service, written by Yale psychology professor Marianne LaFrance, you’ve been lengthening your life every single time you really smile. Of course this can’t be properly tested, but based off of a study of baseball players done last year, those who showed off their wide grins lived much longer than those who frowned. Smiling and happiness lead to a better lifestyle which then leads to a longer life for many people.
Your smile is so much more than an expression of your feelings. It can also be the ticket to the vitality of your friends and family’s lives too. Because our culture pays more attention to the mouth than any other feature of the face, your grin is contagious to anyone near you, so it’s more likely for your loved ones to be smiling if you are.
Real smiles can help extend your life span, but fake smiles probably won’t do the trick. There are many times when a person might fake a smile: to disguise anger, pain, or annoyance, to create tension or awkwardness, and especially to cover up yellowing or unwanted tooth placements. People are more often than not uncomfortable with the appearance of their mouths and teeth, and sometimes are ashamed of the smile they’ve known all their lives.
Fortunately, you don’t have to be ashamed of your smile forever. You can have missing teeth replaced with full dental implants, get a new look with porcelain veneers, have whiter teeth with tooth whitening and improve your smile with any of our cosmetic dentistry techniques. Live your life longer with a smile on your face and don’t let anything hold you back.
Smile!
Dr. Andrew Hall DMD
