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.
Sounds like a good practice. Just one question, how big is a half smile? When does a half smile become a full smile? (or vice versa?) Or is this question not relevant - does it matter? :)
I had similar questions/responses to this post as CW. Also, will other people unfamiliar with the practice of half smiling think i’m a bit odd? It shouldn’t matter, i know, chances are they will think i’m odd but smile back anyway.
cw: I would guess the half smile becomes a full smile when it starts to be reflected in your mood. You can do a half smile without feeling any different. As soon as you start feeling more ‘warm’ I find a full smile inevitably breaks out :)
jl: conformity is boring, it feels good to shake up make someone’s otherwise mundane day :)
I think that this dicsussion is great. I half smile whenever i feel awful or depressed… immediately i feel a sense of hope when i half smile. I think that barely raising your lips from a frown can be half smiling, but it depends on what expression your face started out with. Keep on half smiling gang! Even if someone doesn’t return the smile, they still felt it. I know this from experience. Somethimes it is too hard to return… Love Justine
It’s been a while since I focused on this. Thanks for reminding me to smile again Justine :)
I half-smile all the time, as in smiling with only one side of my mouth (the left, in my case). It’s a bit of a habit, and I find that this habit has caused one side to smile much easier then the other. Thus, most of my smiles are half-smiles. This doesn’t bother me though; I’ve always been a bit of an “odd” person anyway, so compared to other traits about me a half-smile is nothing ;) Besides… I’ve always loved half-smiles on other people, and once one grew comfortably into my own face I liked it there as well. I smile quite a bit. It always pulls me out of the dumps and puts me in a positive mood!
Hi… It was interesting coming across this blog. I am currently learning about this in one of my classes. I have found the the Half Smile to very useful..when im distracted or in a negative frame of mind, i Half Smile. Picks me up again :)
I was so happy to find this blog about half smiles because there are some contrarians out there who say a half smile (with one side of the mouth) indicates hidden feelings of contempt. This surprised me because I have a friend who half smiles all the time, and he’s a happy loving person who everyone adores. Whenever he half smiles at me it makes me happy, and I can’t resist half smiling back. Now I’ve picked up my friend’s habit, and I find myself half smiling often, even when I’m alone. It does lift my mood. In fact, I’m doing it right now, and I feel pretty great!
“half-smile” doesn’t refer to a one-sided smile but to both sides of the mouth very slightly upturned in a half-smile. I’m sure there are no rules but everything I’ve studied related to the “half-smile” in Buddhism refers to the expression most commonly seen on the face of the Buddha in artwork. Also…just a thought here but I imagine that a half-smile where only one corner of the mouth is turned up but the other is turned down might read differently to people looking at you than is intended with the Buddha half-smile.