A Look at The Advantages of Laughing and Being Cheerful

Famous ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle says, "Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence" (thinkexist.com). Happiness is to share it with another person as well as the thing which only oneself feels. How people know other people feel happiness when they are with you is smile. According to Tan, Goh, Lim, and Sim, the smile or a smiling face is a symbol of happiness that is a state of mind or feeling such as contentment, satisfaction, pleasure, or joy (10). A person who is smiling all the time, and they make good impression all others. However, it is difficult to be with a smile anytime. People may depress or be feeling bad. The human being knows that it is not good to show true feelings in appropriate situation. In such a case, people can hide these feeling by forced smile. Other, there are four more benefits of making a forced smile. They are be liked, be trusted, be positive, and be healthy. Even if it is not true smile, a forced smile enables to people around you think a person who is smiling has good personality and make you happy, too.

At first, when a person makes a forced smile most is time to be liked by others. Because none of the people wants to be disliked by a person, we do a forced smile especially in front of people who have greater status than us. Subordinates should make a smile even if boss makes you feel stress without taking a displeased attitude and without being angry suddenly. Similarly, when person try to get in a group of unknown people, new person tries to conform to the group. At that time, smiling face is working well. People in the group think that new person fits the group and feels comfortable when they see his smiling face. In fact, new person in a group may not smile truly at first. However, he is getting adjust himself gradually to the group. To build good relationship, People can show a forced smile as if a person is totally interested in a group. Finally, when people want to be liked by others and try to adapt to a group of people who are unfamiliar, smiling face helps them well.

Smiling face helps not only to be liked by others, adapt to new group, but also gives trusts to others. For instance, an eager sales man who is talking with a smile is trusted very much. In psychology, this is called foot-in-the-mouth effect. My 80 years old grandmother lived alone in the house. She bought health equipment from a door-to-door selling with large amount. Because an aunty is the hardhead as does not listen people’s talking, so I asked what kind of salesperson he was. She said the drummer was very polite, and introduces a product eagerly with a smile well all the time while he was talking. Therefore, she did not seem him to tell a lie because of his smile and then my grandmother has bought it carelessly. It is bad case of using forced smile. On the other hand, good way to using the forced smile for trust is when this forced smile uses to friends or colleagues, these people regard you as fully trusted person. This experience shows smiling face leaves a good impression on people. It is very effectible to judge a person from an appearance.

Forced smile is very useful tools for building good relationship with others. In addition, it develops a constructive way of a life. “Smile begets smile, thus promotes wellbeing” (Tan, Goh, Lim, Sim 10). For example, the company will employ a person who is smiling than the person who is a sullen look in a job interview. It is said that the boss evaluates well an amiable person even after entering the company. Tanzer, Shahar, and Avidan note that “happy facial expression as a way of verifying their positive conviction of their abilities, reflected in the appraisal of others” (Swann, 1983. 3). I felt the power of the smile mostly is when I was working at Japanese restaurant as a server. This restaurant focused on the service for the customer. Therefore, a manager wanted to hire people who has a good smile and energetic. First day of working, I was really surprised because all of servers keep smiling during open hours. Their smile let customers smile, so the restaurant atmosphere was really booming. Servers made forced smile, however that smile delights customers, and it leads to a profit. Whichever true smile or forced smile makes people feel happy and give energy for living life.

The forced smile improves not only thinking positively but also the body becomes healthy, too. It promotes relaxation and lets a cell activate. The smile is effective in grinding parasympathetic nerve lively with autonomic nerve. Blood pressure to wear that breathing stops by becoming the parasympathetic nerve predominance and envies becomes gentle and can be relaxed very much. Breathing and the pulse and blood pressure become calm and able to be relaxed very much by becoming the parasympathetic nerve predominance. This effect contributes to the fact that can sleep well on the happy day. A smile includes the effect to improve immunity elsewhere. Making a smile activates the natural killer cell, which improves immunity. This cell is the great cell that even the cancer cell kills. Five years ago, my aunt suffered from colon cancer. Doctor suggested that she smile as much as possible because of improving immunity. He also said that it doesn’t matter whichever smile is true or fake. Her cancer is not yet cured, but lives in four years for a long time after the remaining days are sentenced. Her immunity seems to only cost by spending everyday life with a smile. She used the anticancer agent, but smile seemed to increase immunity more. This affection is not fully proved yet. However, whichever true or forced smile develops people’s immunity.

In conclusion, the expression called the forced smile is not too good sound, but the benefit of smile is really big. When people make forced smile, others may realized one’s forced smile. A poor forced smile is sensed by a partner and gives loathsomeness. How people distinguish these differences is movement of facial muscles. Bernstein, Young, Brown, Sacco and Claypoo defined the automatic activation of two facial muscles in response to the experience of pleasure and is generally considered a ‘‘true’’ smile (982). These muscles’ movements show the difference between true and forced smile. When human makes a true smile, the orbicularis oculi and the pars orbitals contract in addition to zygomaticus major, causing the cheeks to raise and the skin around the eyes to crease. Frist step of smile procedure move the muscle around mouth and then another muscle around eyes move. On the other hand, when people make forced smile these 2 muscles move same time. It is obviously recognized. If we are careful about this and making a forced smile, our life will be liked by people, is trusted, is positive and can obtain health. These things lead us to happiness. According to Happy Planet Index (HPI) is an index of human well-being and environmental impact that was introduced by the New Economics Foundation (NEF), in 2006 America’s HPI was 28.83.and a rank of HPI all over the world was 150. In 2009 the HPI was 30.7 and the rank was also up to 114 (happyplanetindex.org). This statics shows more number of American are happy than 2006. However, this rate tells America is still low compare to other countries. In the future, American happiness rate will elevate if they use forced smile.