World Smile Day: How You Can Be A Part of the Fun!

Have you smiled today? When was the last time you laughed out loud?

Did you know that taking time to do these things every day can actually improve your health? It’s true! According to a recent study, smiling and laughing can lead to all sorts of benefits, like stress reduction, a stronger immune system, improved mood, pain reduction, and an overall increase in optimism and positivity.

Laughter is also making inroads in the field of cognitive behavioral therapy. Humor and laughter, when combined with mediation or yoga, is showing promise in reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression, as well as a number of physical health complaints. It turns out that for some health conditions laughter really might be the best medicine.

So, with that in mind, imagine how much good you could do if you caused others to smile and laugh too!

Friday, October 7th, 2022 is World Smile Day. This event was first held in 1999 and is all about sharing smiles and laughter with others, especially through acts of kindness and service.

Participating is simple! Just do an act of kindness and help one person smile, then tell the world and friends about it on social media with #worldsmiledaychallenge tagged. That’s it!

Through your small actions, you can help make the world a better place. Here are a few simple acts of kindness which put smiles on our faces:

Pay it forward

Have you ever had anybody pay for your meal anonymously in a drive thru? Or offer to buy fuel for your car at a gas station? If moments like these have ever happened to you, you probably won’t ever forget how grateful and hopeful you felt. On October 7th, if you find yourself in a situation where you could treat someone to a meal, a concert ticket, or even a generous tip, you might consider taking that opportunity! And the best part of all is watching the chain reaction that is likely to follow—kindness is contagious after all.

Give something up

A cheap yet worthy way of offering kindness to others is making a small sacrifice for them. This doesn’t have to be anything huge, but something as small as letting others merge in front of you on the freeway can make a big difference in someone’s morning commute. You could let someone else take a better parking spot. You could let someone cut in front of you in line or risk being late to help someone carry their grocery bags to their car. You could also leave a few dollars hidden in a book in your local bookstore or in a vending machine for a lucky passerby. Small sacrifices of your time and energy will most definitely make someone smile.

Volunteer

If you have extra time to spare on the 7th of October, consider volunteering to serve others. You could volunteer to help children learn to read at your local elementary school, visit a retirement home, help plant or harvest a community garden, or lend your smile to serve food at a soup kitchen. If you need any more ideas for local volunteer opportunities in your area, check out the JustServe app! There are endless opportunities for service for you to choose from.

Use your words

Words don’t cost a thing, but they are not cheap. Using your words to help others smile can be one of the most insightful and kind things you can offer others. You can be liberal with genuine compliments to strangers or friends, or leave an anonymous, heartfelt note on someone’s car or front door, or even send a loved one a post card (everyone loves to get mail!).

However you choose to make others smile on World Smile Day, do it with your heart and you might find yourself smiling just as much. There is nothing quite like the joy that comes from knowing you’ve brightened someone else’s day.