I read somewhere that the British have the concept of "upper lips". It means that any adversity in life must be met with a smile. Whatever happens, the corners of the mouth must disciplinedly look up. An English smile is a manifestation of self-control and endurance. Gentlemen and ladies bear the blows of fate with dignity. Look at James Bond - despite all the troubles and trials, he smiles, restrained and elegant.

The American smile is a different story. In our latitudes, it was negatively assessed, it even became synonymous with an implicit reaction to what is happening, window dressing. People stretch their mouths in smiles, but in fact they don’t want to smile, so this is unnatural and even unpleasant. That was the reasoning. In general, I even agreed with her, plastic smiles seemed to me an unnecessary fake, until the moment I got to the USA. Without idealization, which I, as an impressionable person, tend to, I can say that the American smile on duty is a real-life phenomenon. They really smile: in the subway, shops and elevators. By unspoken agreement, it is customary to smile when looking into the face of a stranger or acquaintance.

But what surprised me, it's not at all disgusting, on the contrary. Surprising, but it's nice. The world greets you with a positive attitude: is it natural or the result of effort - what's the difference? You see people who are friendly, kind of happy with what is happening, not dedicated to the sorrows of their existence. And this fact creates a pleasant emotional background for your day. Obviously, each of us has our own reasons to be sad or tense, but it is not at all necessary to report this to the world. It is obvious that each of us overcomes, and it is not at all necessary to remind about it. We all know about it, but we manage, and therefore we smile. A smiling person is a strong and successful person. The American smile is a demonstration of success in life. And what's wrong with people trying to be like that? Or what's wrong with having such a socially-created model? The American dream is inseparable from a white-toothed perfect smile. Hollywood Standard.

There is a smile of Asians. In Thailand, I was struck by two facts - the locals are mostly very polite - one, they smile, they barely meet your eyes, they smile almost all the time while you are talking to them - these are two. And it's a special smile. It seems to me that happy children smile like that. Of course, this does not always happen and not with everyone, but quite often. Maybe it has to do with religion. Buddhists accept everything as it is and strive to enjoy every moment. This is really a wise philosophy of life that resonates in Western civilization... The life of a modern person consists entirely of stresses, expectations and realizations that we ourselves plan or that are assigned to us. The ability to get joy from the moment when you can stop, raise your head and smile at the sun is what we need to learn. The smile of Asians, in this sense, is a manifestation of wisdom and joy to live.

Any reason to smile is compelling. Perceiving what is happening, opening up in a positive greeting, is much more pleasant than frowning at the world. Smiling is the only thing that can be done without effort and that will make the world a better place. Yes, it does not solve global problems, does not offer solutions, does not teach, but creates a pleasant emotional background. Smile and the world will smile back at you. And this is a great gift.

Our emotional expressions seem to be innate, they are part of our evolutionary heritage. However, their etymology remains a mystery. Can we trace these social cues from the very beginning, from their evolutionary roots, to the behavior of our ancestors

Long before the advent of spoken language, our ancestors communicated using gestures. And now much of what we communicate to each other is non-verbal. But why do we bare our teeth when we want to express friendliness? Why are we laughing? We offer you a translation of an article about the theory of the origin of a smile.

Our emotional expressions seem to be innate, they are part of our evolutionary heritage. However, their etymology remains a mystery. Can we trace these social cues from the very beginning, from their evolutionary roots, to the behavior of our ancestors?

About a decade ago, at the Princeton University lab, we studied how the brain monitors the safety zone around the body and controls bending, squirming, squinting, and other actions that keep us safe from the effects of others.

Our experiments have focused on a specific set of regions in the brains of humans and monkeys. These areas of the brain immediately "processed" the space around the body, took sensory information and converted it into movement. We tracked the activity of individual neurons in those areas, trying to understand their function. As we watched our videos, I noticed a disturbing similarity everywhere: the defensive actions of the monkeys were terribly similar to standard human social cues. Why is it that when you blow on a monkey's face, its expression looks so oddly like a human smile? Why, while laughing, do we seem to use some elements of a protective stance?

As it turned out, we were not the first to look for a relationship between defensive movements and social behavior. Heini Hediger, Zurich Zookeeper in the 60s, shared his insight with us. He was trying to figure out how to divide the space of the zoo among the animals in such a way as to take into account their natural needs, and therefore he sometimes asked the zoo's chief biologist for advice. And often he was surprised when he learned how animals interact with the surrounding space.

While on an expedition to Africa, where he was catching new specimens for the zoo, Hediger noticed a constantly recurring pattern of behavior among animals that were preyed upon by predators. A zebra, for example, doesn't just run away from a lion. Instead, she seems to be building an invisible perimeter around herself. As long as the lion is outside this perimeter, the zebra is safe. When the lion crosses the border, the zebra changes location and re-establishes a safe zone. If a lion enters a smaller area, the zebra runs away. The zebras themselves have similar “protective zones” among themselves, and although they are much smaller, they are treated with due respect. In a crowd, zebras never come close. They step and move in such a way as to maintain a minimum organized space between them.

In the 1960s, the American psychologist Edward Hall adapted the same idea to human behavior. Hall found that each person has a protective zone 60–90 cm wide, widening towards the head and narrowing towards the feet. The zone does not have a fixed size: if you are nervous, it grows, if you are relaxed, it shrinks. It also depends on your cultural upbringing. Personal space is less in Japan and more in Australia. Put a Japanese and an Australian in the same room - a strange dance will follow: the Japanese will step forward, the Australian will step back, and so they will follow one after the other. Maybe even without paying attention to what is happening.

Hediger and Hall led us to an important discovery. The mechanism we use to protect also forms the basis of our social engagement. In the end, he organizes a kind of network within the social space.

Smiling, one of the main tools of social interaction, is a very specific thing. Upper lip lifted to show teeth. Cheeks spread out to the sides. The skin around the eyes is wrinkled. Duchenne de Boulogne, a 19th-century neurologist, observed that a cold, fake smile is often limited to the mouth, while a genuine, friendly smile always involves the eyes. A sincere smile is now named Duchenovskaya in his honor.

A smile can also indicate submission. Employees who are subject to someone smile much more when they are among influential people. (“It used to be, / They greeted with smiles, bows, / They almost kneeled, / As in a temple!” Patroclus remarks about Achilles in Troilus and Cressida).

It only adds to the mystery. Why showing teeth is a sign of friendliness? Why do it as a sign of humility? Aren't teeth needed to testify to aggression?

Most ethologists agree that the smile is evolutionarily ancient and that variants of it are found in many primates. If you are watching a group of monkeys, you will notice that they sometimes give each other what looks like a grimace. They communicate without aggression; ethologists call this "silent display of teeth". Some theorists argue that this gesture originated from more or less the opposite - preparation for an attack.

But I think that by focusing only on the teeth, they miss a lot. In fact, this "demonstration of teeth" includes the entire body. Imagine two monkeys, A and B. Monkey B traverses monkey A's personal space. Result? The two neurons responsible for monitoring personal space begin to crackle in a classic defensive response. Monkey A squints, protecting his eyes. Her upper lip tightens. She bares her teeth, but that's just a side effect: the meaning of a lip tuck is not so much to prepare for an attack, but to tighten the skin on the face, slightly covering the eyes with skin folds. The ears "pull back" to protect themselves from damage. The head retracts and the shoulders rise to cover the vulnerable throat and neck. The head turns away from the approaching object. The torso leans forward to protect the abdomen. Depending on the location of the threat, the arms may be crossed in front of the torso or in front of the face. Monkeys most often adopt a conventional defensive stance that protects fragile and vulnerable parts of the body.

Monkey B can learn a lot by watching monkey A's reaction. If monkey A defends himself, as if in full response to monkey B's actions, then this is a good sign that monkey A is scared. She is uncomfortable. Her personal space is invaded. She perceives monkey B as an enemy, as someone socially superior to her. On the other hand, monkey A may respond "indistinctly" by narrowing his eyes slightly and turning his head back. This means that monkey A is not particularly frightened - he does not perceive monkey B as socially superior or as an enemy.

Such information is very useful to the members of the social group. Monkey B can learn where to be in order to show respect to monkey A. In this way, a social signal develops; natural selection will favor monkeys that can read the submission responses in their group and adjust their behavior accordingly. By the way, this is perhaps the most important part of this story: the most evolutionary pressure is on those who receive the signal, not on those who send it. This story is about how we started responding to smiling.

Nature is often an arms race. If Monkey B can gather useful information by watching Monkey A, then it is useful for Monkey A to manipulate that information to influence Monkey B. That is, evolution favors monkeys that can, under the right circumstances, kind of play a defensive reaction. It is useful to convince others that you are not threatening them.

Let's look at the origin of the smile: it's a brief imitation of a defensive stance. In humans, there is only a stripped-down version of it, in which the facial muscles are involved: the upper lip is pulled up, the cheeks diverge to the sides and up, the eyes squint. Today we use it to communicate from a position of friendly aggression rather than from a position of complete submission and assistance.

And yet we can still observe the "monkey" gestures in ourselves. Sometimes we smile to show complete submission, and this subservient smile can come along with the echoes of the defensive stance throughout the body: head down, shoulders up, torso up, hands in front of the chest. Like monkeys, we respond to these signals automatically. We can't help but feel warm towards those who radiate a Duchenne smile. We cannot help but feel contempt for a person who outwardly shows obedience, just as we cannot help but be suspicious of those who imitate warmth with a soulless smile with cold eyes.

It is incredible that so much could come from such a simple root. An ancient defense mechanism, a mechanism that analyzes the space around the body and organizes defensive movements, suddenly finds itself in the hypersocial world of primates, surrounded by smiles, laughter, crying and fawning. Each of these behaviors is then subdivided into several others, growing into a whole codebook of cues for use in different social settings. Not all human expressions can be explained through this, but very many. Duchenne smile, cold smile, laughter at a joke, laughter of appreciation for a clever wit, cruel laughter, a crouch meant to show reverence for someone or a straight back to show confidence, crossed arms to show suspicion, open arms ("Welcome!" ), the sad grimace with which we show sympathy for someone's sad story - this whole set of expressions could come from one sensory-motor defense mechanism that has nothing to do with communication.

Going out into the street, it is very rare to see a smiling person. People are constantly thinking about something, they don't just smile.
To trigger positive thoughts and improve your life, you need to smile more.

What is the use of smiling?

The human brain consists of neural connections that work in two directions: when we feel good, a smile automatically appears on our face, if we smile, it automatically becomes good. It is for this reason that when sadness covers you, you need to smile and then the bad mood will disappear. You can find out why mood is an assistant to success

Physiology affects the state of mood in the following ways:

1. If a person is sad and sits stooping, his energy automatically decreases and his mood drops.
2. If a person is in a reclining position, he will want to sleep.
3. If a person walks with a straight back and smiles, he wants to live and enjoy the moments of life.

Try to smile in any situation and start acting. Even if there is a black stripe in your life, a smile can decorate it with all the colors of the rainbow. To become happier, you need to remember the laughter and smile of small children, even in those moments when they take their first steps and speak their first conscious words. When you wake up in the morning, look out the window. If the sun is outside, the mood will rise immediately. If it rains, smile at the new day, put on rubber boots and go for a walk with the kids through the puddles under umbrellas. This is a very fun and entertaining activity. For energy and better health, try to smile 200 times daily.

A smile brings happiness and health!

How does a smile affect your life?

Ron Goodman, reflecting on the topic "The Secret Power of Smiling", concluded that a smiling person is more attractive and healthy. People are drawn to him, they want to communicate with him. He is accompanied by good luck in all matters, as well as longevity. Find out on our website!

• Making family and friends happy

If a person met a smiling acquaintance, he spontaneously begins to smile as well, his mood immediately rises. According to this phenomenon, we can conclude that a smile is a contagious thing. If someone smiles, other people who surround him are charged with a positive attitude.

• Be happy

Smiling sends a signal to the brain that he is happy. In this case, the body begins to produce endorphins, which lift mood. According to studies conducted in the 80s, it was proved that a smile makes a person happy, and a frown and despondency make a person unhappy.

• Smiling for attractiveness

Often people pay more attention to those who smile. Frowning and discontent only repels others. With the help of a sincere smile, a person becomes more interesting to the opposite sex. If you make an appointment or a date with someone, be sure to smile to win over the person and cheer him up. After a sincere smile, they will want to see you again and agree to the next meeting.

• Relieve stress

With the help of laughter, you can easily relieve fatigue and congestion. Thanks to him, you can successfully cope with disturbing thoughts. When the brain receives smile signals, the frequency of breathing and heart rate decreases. Reduces stress levels. High blood pressure begins to decrease, digestion becomes better, blood sugar levels return to normal.

• A smile will replace any makeup

More than half of the percent of people believe that a girl with a smile on her face is prettier than one that is made up and sad. The muscles on the face that take part in creating a smile tighten it and rejuvenate it.

• Smiling for health

Smiling, we support our immunity. Laughter is good for health. It improves blood circulation, fights stressful situations, normalizes sleep. Smiling raises antibodies that fight infections.

• We become more successful

If a person smiles, he feels more confident. If you smile at a speech in front of a large audience, it is pleasant to look at you and it is easy to perceive your information. Success in this case is guaranteed to you.

• Smile for longevity

According to studies, scientists have found that the wider the smile on your face, the longer you will live. It relieves stress, increases the hormones of happiness. Five minutes of laughter has been found to prolong life by one year. Therefore, try as often as possible to give your smile to the people around you.

Now you know why you need to smile and how a smile affects a person’s well-being and mood. Try to find the positive in every situation.