Smile! Ten Things Science Says Will Make You Happy!

From Yes! Magazine: 10 Things Science Says Will Make You Happy!

The title, deciphered, means "10 things supported by scientific research that people who tend to be happy do."

Of course, there's the problem of cause and effect, that is, does this MAKE people happy, or do happy people just tend to do these things more often?

My observation about this comes from experience with number seven: Smile, even when you don't feel like it. A few months ago I had been in a funk for a few days, when, in reading a website about Tai Ji to refine my form, I saw a note: Qi Gong Practice: Smile!

Don't just smile, break out a achingly wide happy-smile, like a proud papa watching his son learn how to ride a bike, the article said, giving step-by-step instructions as if it were a complicated movement in Tai Ji. Doing this, it's hard not to feel happy, or at least to bring that sensation of smiling in contact with whatever and wherever in your body isn't feeling the smile. Repeat. I found that as I smiled, as I remembered to smile, whatever sensation of unpleasantness was in my body was relaxed away, and whatever unnaturalness I had felt about smiling similarly left, and that it was hard to stop smiling! Right now as I write I'm having the same problem: smiling makes me feel too good! I'm literally beaming, for no reason at all, just because I smiled once, purposely and concentratedly, at the beginning of writing this, and I just can't stop.

This dovetails into the first recommendation: Savor everyday moments. Just stop and smell the roses, as it were, or watch children playing. That smiling might just come back of its own accord. That bursting happiness from smiling any other time of the day will also help you to focus on just what's in front of you, the breathtaking beauty of the terribly mundane.

So, is it one, or the other? Does being happy make you do these things, or do these things make you happy?

As with everything, it's both. Being happy makes you do these things freely and joyfully, which makes you happy, which makes you do these things freely and joyfully. What a world!

Really, of course, remembering to smile, remembering to appreciate the littlest moments, is what awareness practice is, and is all about. There is nothing wrong with the world. We get caught up in ourselves, and neglect this simple and ever-present sensation of joy that is the base of everything else.

So, if you are alone, (don't want to look foolish, now,) smile, uncompromisingly, smile as wide as you can, let your eyes come together at the sides, your scalp pull back, and open your mouth up and smile! Then, repeat as necessary.