With the holidays coming up, you should already have good reasons to smile. Great food, festive cheer, and family get-togethers are enough to make anyone grin. Even so, there’s another one you’d do well to consider: smiling can benefit your health! By showing off your teeth, you’d make your body stronger and more stable. If you need proof of these facts, here are four big ways smiling can make you healthier than ever.
By Boosting Your Immunity
Surprisingly enough, showing off your teeth can protect you from disease. Research shows that smiling boosts a person’s immune system.
The reason behind this boost relates to your mood. When you smile, you increase your body’s levels of endorphins – a brain chemical that helps you relax. This improved calmness then reduces the strain on your immune system, ensuring you can fight harmful bacteria more effectively. From there, you become less likely to get sick.
By Easing Your Pain
Illnesses aren’t the only things a smile defends you from, either. Frequent grinning also reduces the physical pain you feel.
It comes back to how smiles produce endorphins. Even as these brain chemicals calm you down, they act as natural painkillers as well. That means smiling a lot will ease your bodily pain, helping you feel more comfortable over time.
By Lowering Your Blood Pressure
Smiling isn’t just good for the heart metaphorically. In recent years, studies have shown that flashing your pearly whites can lower your blood pressure.
It seems that laughter specifically helps with hypertension. According to researchers, the act of laughing reduces blood pressure on your artery walls; this effect then lowers your risk of heart attacks and strokes. Since smiling is part and parcel with laughter, one could say your grin gives you better cardiovascular health.
By Helping You Live Longer
Most crucially of all, smiling has a positive impact on lifespan. You’re more likely to live a longer life when you show your teeth a lot.
Indeed, this finding comes from a 2010 study in the journal Psychological Science. Said study concluded that people with intense smiles in photographs tended to live longer. As for the reason a smile adds years to your life, it’s simple: happy people enjoy better physical health over time.
It’s great to grin due to holiday fun, but don’t forget that smiling can also benefit your health. A thriving body is incentive enough to reveal your teeth.
About the Practice
Dr. Euksuzian & Dr. Braatz Family and Cosmetic Dentistry is based in Medford, NJ. Led by many great dentists, our practice always aims to make smiles healthy and beautiful. We thus offer preventive, cosmetic, and even restorative treatments, all tailored to your grin’s needs. Our team is also ready and able to handle dental emergencies on short notice. For more details or to book a visit, please contact us on our website or by phone at (609)-953-4300.
