It’s Friday, which may prompt a smile from you because it’s, you know, Friday. And “Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend,” as that 2011 Rebecca Black song goes. But on this particular Friday, there’s an additional reason for you to turn that frown upside down. It’s World Smile Day just like it’s been the first Friday in October each year since 1999. This is the day dedicated to smiles and random acts of kindness. And given the potential health benefits of smiling, your smiling could be a non-random act of kindness for yourself as well.
What specifically should you do on this day? Well, the World Smile Day website has the following motto: “Do an act of kindness. Help one person smile!” It also lists events that have happened in Worcester, Massachusetts, which is where the yellow smiley face was first created, on different World Smile Days. They’ve ranged from the delivery of Smile Certificates to the unveiling of the World’s largest human Smiley face to pie eating contest. There have also been events parts of the world such as delivering meals and smiley treats to those in need and holding smile events in hospitals. Then there’s the #worldsmileday hashtag, which you can use on social media, especially when someone is posting about how dumb you are.
If you are really on the ball about this day, you’d know all that Harvey Ball did to get this day going. He’s the guy who in 1963 first designed that iconic yellow smiley face. (No, Forest Gump had nothing to do with it, regardless of what you saw in that movie, because Gump was not real.) As a commercial artist based in Worcester, Ball originally created the image for a State Mutual Life Insurance advertising campaign. But this design soon took a life of its own, eventually spreading like everywhere. After seeing what he felt was the over-commercialization of his symbol, Ball wanted to restore it’s original meaning and intent by declaring that the first Friday in October each year be World Smile Day. The first such day occurred in 1999. After Balls’ death in 2001 the subsequently formed Harvey Ball World Smile Foundation took up the mantle as the official sponsor of this day.
World Smile Day is supposed to commemorate the good type of smiling, not the type of smiling The Joker does when he’s lowering Batman into a pool of acid. It’s also not about the smiling that people display when they are contemptuous, narcissistic or smug or want to exert their dominance over others. No, World Smile Day is about the good type of smiling when someone is expressing approval, happiness, warmth, compassion, a sense of connection or other positive feelings.
Now you may be more likely to smile when things are going well for you. But there is evidence that smiling alone can help things go well for you. For example, it can make you appear more friendly and approachable. After all, it may not be typical for people to say, “I love it when you scowl at me.” Smiling may also make you look more attractive, which is why “Smile” is more commonly said right before a photo is taken rather than “Frown.” In fact, smiling could even make you look more successful. For example, a gold medalist is probably more likely to be smiling after a race than someone who came in 35th place.
That’s not all. The act of smiling itself may prompt the release of different endorphins and neurotransmitters in your body. Studies have suggested that this, in turn, can lead to a range of different health benefits such as reducing pain, blood pressure and feelings of stress. It may also boost your mood and immune system. In fact, one study published in the journal Psychological Sciences found that those who smiled more often were more likely to live longer. Naturally, such an association alone does not prove that the smiling helped extend people’s lives. It could be that people who lived longer may have smiled because life was easier to them.
Nevertheless, there is evidence that even forcing yourself to smile when you don’t necessarily want to can be beneficial. In one study described by a publication in Psychological Science, Tara L. Kraft and Sarah D. Pressman from the University of Kansas had 170 study participants perform two different stressful tasks and found that people had lower heart rates when recovering from the stress when smiling compared to maintaining neutral expressions. This was true even when people were forced to smile with chopsticks in their mouths and unaware that they were smiling. So when you are faced with a tough situation, you may want to grin and bear it.
Finally, evidence suggests that smiling can be a bit like COVID-19 in a good way: it can be quite contagious. When one person smiles, others around that person may be more likely do so as well. This is due to autonomic mimicry, which is our tendency to mimic the facial expression of others, as described by review article in Trends in Cognitive Science.
So, if you wear a smile on World Smile Day, who knows how many other people you will end up influencing? You may or may not be in love this Friday, regardless of what The Cure sang. But by smiling you could spread some love to others and yourself as well.
