Why smiles are contagious

Do you know why smiles are contagious? Because when you see someone smiling, your brain tries to understand what that someone is feeling and the only way to understand it is by mimicking the other person’s facial expression. The brain is actually kind of stupid, if you think about it.

So basically, when you smile and someone sees you smile and they smile back, you’re directly responsible for making one person happy.

I was just walking around a grocery store having a very animated conversation with my friend and I was smiling really big, and a woman comes around a corner, sees me smiling really big and smiles back. There you go, contagious.

Even though there are people out there that when you smile at them they don’t smile back. I do that sometimes, I smile on purpose at people with scowls to see if they are habitual scowlers or just temporarily caught in a scowl, and some people never smile back. I wouldn’t recommend you do this experiment, though, because it can have the opposite effect. Your brain will try to mimic this person’s scowl and then you’ll feel like crap.

So I encourage you to smile! 

See you,

Misty