A happy, healthy smile can make the difference between a smiling face and one that appear miserable. This is true for both children and adults. Children have the ability to acquire a beautiful smile through exercise, diet and other methods. An unhappy, crooked smile can affect your entire social life and make you look less attractive to others.
The muscles in your face are attached to the bones that form the facial structure, these bones, called the face, are held in place by tendons and muscles that run along them. A smile is formed mainly by moving the muscles on the edges of your mouth across the teeth. Some smiles result from a perfectly balanced smile, this is called a perfectly balanced or even handsome smile, while others result from a little bit of excess wrinkle coverage (this happens after a lot of smoking). Some smiles have an extra contraction of these muscles at the corners of your eyes, an action called a Duchenne smile, which can also be described as an angry frown.
The way in which you smile will determine whether you smile more or less often, and the level of expression you display will also determine whether you smile with confidence or anxiety. Smiling is an innate, biological response to happiness, which helps us to relax and de-stress. Smiling also provides emotional cover, allowing us to ignore those negative facial expressions we may try to suppress or ignore out of fear or embarrassment. However, a frowning or smiling expression can make you look unfriendly, so smiling is an important aspect of good social etiquette.
There are two types of facial expressions, upright (or upright) and rounded (or round) facial expressions. The corners of our mouths are not symmetrical, so when our facial expressions change, the corners of our mouth may also move. The smile patterns we use are different from person to person and they can reflect our mood. Smiles that are forced or overly serious seem unfriendly and uncomfortable, whereas a smile that is genuinely happy or excited can make us look more friendly. A smile may also suggest a level of interest and sincerity in others.
Smiling is a learned, biological behaviour that is hard to unlearn. However, if we wish to avoid developing frowning or other unfriendly facial expressions, it may be possible to train our muscles to smile more naturally. This is one approach, some dentists take. It can be achieved by training the front teeth to point upwards, or making other changes to the structure of our jaws and teeth. This can take many months’ time, and in the longer term, we can achieve more natural smiles without the use of dentures or other external devices. We also need to be careful not to over-smile, as this can be perceived as manipulative and therefore as a sign of manipulation, itself, and is therefore a potential turn-off.
Training the facial muscles to smile is a great way to improve the way that we feel, both positively and negatively. The benefits of smiling include boosting our confidence, reducing stress levels, lowering blood pressure, boosting physical well-being and boosting our health overall. There are several ways in which smiling can be taught, and one of these methods is through learnt facial expressions. By watching someone else that smiles confidently, can teach us some of these methods, as well as helping us with our own training. Learning how to control our facial muscles can give us greater self-confidence and significantly reduce stress.