FREE SMILES

I started my Free Smiles project of carrying my Free Smiles sign while out for my daily exercise in September 2020. I value it as a powerful creative and spiritual practise through which I engage playfully and lovingly with the public. Through various lockdowns it has helped bring me strength and the resolve to connect and brighten up people's lives at a time of great isolation, confusion and fear. I see my Free Smiles practise as a natural evolution from Free Hugs which I have regularly offered for 12 years prior to the pandemic - as part of a wonderful worldwide movement.

1. Smiling transforms the face, not only making us look younger as the muscles we use to smile with, also lift the face, but it makes us appear open, approachable and attractive….Would you believe it, we’re also deemed more competent and confident when we smile.
2. Smiling is a “pattern interrupt” and reminds us that whatever thoughts are whirling through our minds, that there are things to smile about in life – in other words the act of smiling quickly activates a different perspective.
3. Smiling naturally elevates peoples’ moods by triggering the release of neural communication boosting neuropeptides as well as mood boosting neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin.
4. Smiling boosts the immune system because it decreases the stress hormone cortisol and improves a state of relaxation and wellbeing. Depression on the other hand has repeatedly been shown to weaken our immune systems.
5. Smiling genuinely or ‘faking it til you make it", lowers your blood pressure and makes us feel good, releasing endorphins, natural painkillers similar to opioids and serotonin, relaxing the body and reducing physical pain.
6. Smiling, like yawning is contagious – the part of your brain that is responsible for you controlling the facial expression of smiling is an unconscious automatic response area. “This is because of mirror neurons that fire when we see action and therefore enable us to copy or reflect the behaviours we observe in others.
7. Smiling is linked to our capacity for empathy and also taps into the cultural norm of reciprocity, of wanting to return the favour. When someone smiles at you, its natural to want to pass a smile onto the next person and so on.
8. Smiling stimulates our brain’s reward mechanisms in a way that even chocolate, that highly regarded pleasure-inducer, cannot match.
9. Smiling supports and sustains positivity - it is difficult to think stressful, negative thoughts when you smile.