Imperative Soul

I was skimming a Buddhist text last night and came across some advice for daily practice. The thing that leaped out at me was the ‘half smile’. Apparently it is great (Buddhist) practice to regularly half smile. Half smile when you get up. Half smile when you encounter a new situation. Half smile when you get frustrated.

So today I’ve been experimenting with the Half Smile. I half smiled when I got up and immediately felt energetic. I half smiled at strangers on the bus this morning and got some strange stares but also some returned smiles. I half smiled walking across the UWA oak lawn and broke down into laughter. I half smiled during the boring parts of my Maths class and became more interested again.

I think I could and should keep this up :)

Modern psychology confirms the positive effects of smiling. Smiles are the reciprocal of positive emotions. Positive emotions express themselves as smiles but more interestingly forced smiles in turn induce positive emotions. Laughter classes are run as a very positive therapy for individuals.

Also smiling at someone, even when you don’t know each other, can make the other person think positively of you. Your smile induces their smile which then induces their positive emotions and they associate these positive emotions with you. Studies have shown that smiling at people you want to be friends with before you have had any other contact with them can hugely improve peoples impression of you even without you doing anything else.