Can a smile chage a life?

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I don't know, but mayby, I resently went into town to visit my cousin and happened to go into a shop were I used to eat pretty often a few years ago, about half through that time they new recruited, and to be honest, she looked pretty down all the time. You know, like when you've looked sad so much your face has changed to fit that expression, no matter how you feel.
So I decided to see if I could cheer her up a bit, so every time I saw her I started smile like I was extra happy to see her (I tend to allways smile when talking to people), the first times she became really nervous and insecure, but since I never really spoke to her I guess I didn't came off as trying to hit on her (and that would never have crossed my mind either), so she started to smile back at me. And a sort of transformation happened, all of them started to have little smiles on their faces all the time.
Time changed and I stoped eating there, I saw her in town a few times, and I allways gave her brief smiles when she saw me back, but it was a few years since I last saw her now so I was a little surpriced to see she still worked there.
And her entire face had changed too, she still had a kind of hardness in her face, but a smile that hadn't been there before.

So who knows? Mayby a little seed of aspie-happiness made a little change in someones life.
A little ray of sunshine can light up a persons life.

I don't think there's any doubt that a smile causes automated neurological responses in the brain. Evolution has hardwired people to view a smile as the anti-threat and rewards the brain accordingly, the person doing the smiling and anyone viewing it.

Unfortunately, I find it hard to smile when I know I am "supposed to", just doesn't feel natural.

A smile has a decent impact on how one looks... Ever notice how all those weight loss and hair restoration commercials show the before and after pictures where the before picture is a mugshot, and the after picture is almost always smiling? That's marketing at work...

Even in my case, I finally was able to take a picture of myself smiling (it involved copious amount of the Daily Show and a cameraphone... I had to be quick on the draw to take a picture while I was still laughing at the previous joke to pull this off)... and let me tell you, the person in that picture actually looks like he could get a girlfriend... it's almost creepy because the smiling picture looks so much like me (since the picture technically is of me), but everything is just a little... off...

i never notice anyone smiling. But for other people I guess it could change their life, make them happier.
I smile when ever someone says something to me though. Or laugh. I don't think I've changed any lives.

That was a nice story

Yes, things called morror neurons fire and cause people to uncosciously 'mirror' what they just saw, a smile for instance. Apparently ASD people are lacking in these mirror neurons so we have to consciously try to mirror certain things, this is most probably why we don't learn things automatically like others do. I guess it also means we can easily avoid mirroring negative actions though which is a big problem for NTs, everyone I know unconsciously mirrors their parents and when you point that out they never believe or like it.

Last edited by Hmmmn on 10 Jul 2009, 4:04 am, edited 1 time in total.

I liked that story. Thanks for sharing. (:

I love smiling. Doing it and seeing it. When I smile, I know that not everything in the world is bad, and when others smile at me, I know that I'm not too bad either. Smiling is one of the cheapest feel-good things around and absolutely can change someone's entire perspective on life.

My pleasure.

Keep on doing it.

Frankly I've grown sick of smiles. They're by far the most ambiguous of all the signals. It's an overused expression that's caused too much heartache by people who think that person actually cares when they're just doing what they're programmed to do by society. They're patholigically needy. Reminds me of a classmate who was always so damn bubbly and nice and I sometimes wished I could bash her in the head so she'd express some kind of emotion other than stupid prozac induced cheerfulness!

Smiles aren't programmed in by society. They're hardwired. That's the biology behind this very nice story. Smiling is something babies start doing within a few months of birth--- much too soon for societal programming to have set in.

Only if it's a genuine smile.

Hrmph, studying in anthropology has shown that apparently, primates tend to smile (widely) when they need to show submission. Guess we kinda modified that.

Humans are extremely social creatures for the most part. Smiling is a way of communicating that they want people around them to stick around for one reason or another. I was classmates with a bubbly girl, never knew her that well but I found it uplifting to look at her when I thought I could get away with it because I found her good mood infectious. Kinda made me sad when she was a bad mood, made me wonder what could get her down. I'll admit I had a crush on her at the time.

Smiles are normal for most people, we live in a society where we don't have to worry about our food, predators are rare, the weather is a non concern most of the time. There's plenty of reasons to be happy. Why wouldn't people smile?

And Silvervarq, that was a great little story you shared.

Even fake smiles release the hormones that make you happy.

If a fake smile is defined as a smile that is not a result of being happy or of seeking to make another person happy, then it's usually pretty easy to tell a fake smile from the real thing.
I feel that, as long as the smile is occurs for one of those reasons, then it is absolutely a genuine smile and can brighten someone's life.

A smile for any other reason, regardless of what happens with the 'smiler's' hormones, isn't the same feel-good thing for the person being smiled at - if they are perceptive. If they aren't, well, ignorance (in that case) may be blissful.
If the person being smiled at is perceptive then, for them, a fake smile is either unsettling or just a meaningless pose.

A wonderful story, thank you for sharing!

I've seen people on these forums complain before about other people smiling at them and trying to get them to smile when they don't want to, and I always thought the negative reaction was sort of tragic.

I love to smile at girls who seem "plain" at first glance - the ones who smile back instantly transform from looking plain to being radiantly beautiful... it's amazing to me what a simple change of expression can accomplish, and I always feel like I've discovered a rare hidden treasure when that happens.

I think someone said that it's all phony, that people who smile don't really care, but I, at least, do care very much - it gives me great pleasure to see a pretty girl smiling back at me and to see, even for a moment, that weight of an insecure expression lifted off her. It makes my week if I see her later on, and she smiles first, and then I wonder if maybe she'll start smiling at perfect strangers just to see them smile back at her, and if she feels the same pleasure when that happens that I do; I like to think she does, and it just gives her even more reasons to smile more.

Yes, I think it can change a life.

I only smile before I'm about to bite.