Has anyone ever made you smile? Or have you enjoyed a positive impact by the smile of someone else? Well, regardless of who gives or receives the smile, it is obvious that a smile is one of the most powerful forces in the world. Many friendships, expressions of love, and even acts of kindness start with a gentle smile.

While we can dismiss how valuable a smile can get because of its commonplace in everyday life, it’s a phenomenon worth celebrating. That’s why every year, the first Friday in October is set aside to celebrate the distinct and awesome power of the smile.

Thankfully, FlexiSpot is just as interested in putting smiles on your face as they are in ensuring you enjoy the best of office and home productivity. So, World Smile Day is an important holiday worth celebrating to FlexiSpot. 

The theme for the annual World Smile Day is “Do an act of kindness. Help one person smile.” If you’re wondering what reasons you have to smile, how World Smile Day came to be, or why FlexiSpot is eager to commemorate the holiday, look no further. In this article, we trace the story behind the peculiar holiday, why you should smile always, and what your smile means to us. 

The Story Behind World Smile Day

The history of World Smile Day is incomplete without Harvey Ball, the man who made the world’s first-ever smiley face in 1963. The smiley face is best described as a round, sunny yellow face. The face has oval eyes, with one slightly larger than the other, and has an imperfect arc drawn across the mouth.

Harvey Ball wasn’t just a Worcester-born artist but was also a charitable man. Unlike many other artists, he didn’t gain commercial value from, the smiley graphic he created. Instead, he earned only $45 and refused to apply for a trademark for the smiley face.

In 1999, he established the World Smile Foundation and everything the world celebrate about smiles would kickstart from there. The World Smile Foundation, in commemoration of Ball’s contribution to smiling, organizes the annual celebration of World Smile Day. The first World Smile Day was celebrated in 1999. According to the foundation, the day aims to encourage good cheer and good works. 

The Benefits of Smiling

Smiling, just like a host of other physical activities is very beneficial to the body. It’s almost cliché to say that a smile takes way fewer muscles to frown. Yet, that statement is a true reflection of how smiles prevent stress and keep the human muscles healthy.

More specifically, here are six benefits you get to derive from smiling. 

Smiling boosts your immune system

As you already know, smiling is a proven method to relax your muscles. With your muscles relaxed, a smile causes your body to release dopamine, a hormone that helps boost the immune system. So, with more smiles, your body is in a better position to fight diseases.  

With smiles, you age slower

Generally, a face beaming with smiles appears younger and livelier than a frowning or sad face. Scientists believe that smiling conditions the muscles on your face to maintain a healthy shape while preventing the wrinkling or sagging that is associated with old age. 

Smiling ensures your stress levels are down

In addition to physical benefits, smiling also helps you reduce stress to a great extent. Dopamine that comes from smiling not only serves as an immune booster but also helps your body attain euphoria. When you smile, your body also releases a hormone called serotonin, another hormone that keeps you happy and stress-free.

Smiling helps lower your heart rate

When you smile, you use exert less physical and mental effort, unlike other facial expressions. This way, your heart rate is at a relatively low level and your blood pressure is kept at an optimum degree. 

Smiling helps you maintain a positive outlook

Smiling is a great way to show the world that you have a positive disposition to life. When you smile, you ease the tension within and around you. By extension, you enjoy a positive outlook and you’re better suited to make more friends or engage in quality conversations with people around you. 

A smile helps increase your productivity

When you smile, it conditions your mind to think more positively. You appear more competent and your productivity at work reaches a maximum. As such, you can make more money and feel more fulfilled with what you do.

How to Celebrate World Smile Day

Now that you’re convinced of the numerous benefits you stand to gain from smiling, celebrating World Smile Day may come with its peculiarities. If you’re stuck on what to do on World Smile Day, here are four fun ways you should consider to better celebrate every first Friday of October:

• Perform a random act of kindness: This activity shouldn’t come off as surprising since it is essentially the theme of the entire celebration. So, help someone with a grocery bag, pay their bills, or maybe get them a piece of FlexiSpot ergonomic furniture. Whatever the action, be sure it draws a smile from them.
• Tell a joke: Jokes are a good way to spread the amazing feeling of happiness associated with World Smile Day. And if you’re bad at telling jokes, do something funny or invite someone to watch a comedy show with you.
• Add a smiley face emoticon to your messages: On social media and random texts, be sure to let your deepest emotions known through emoticons. Most importantly, cheer someone up with a wonderful smile emoji each time you send a text.
• Wear a smile throughout the day: As the name implies, World Smile Day should have you all smiles and no dull moment. So, as much as it depends on you, be sure at smile to everyone, and in every circumstance. 

Fun Facts About Smiling

Smiling is more than a human expression, it’s a way of life. There’s more to smiling than a mere curve of the mouth and eyes. So, what’s so special about smiles anyways?

Smiling is one of the ways we express our happiness and joy. And much more, it involves both physical, emotional, and psychological undertones, unlike many other actions. 

However, as common as smiling may be, there are some facts about it that you do not. Read on to find out ten mind-blowing facts about smiles and World Smile Day that you never knew. 

• Fact 1: As of 1999, there were 470 variations of the smiley face made specially as internet emojis. 
• Fact 2: Happiness and smiles are products of biology. While you smile, your body produces endorphins, a type of neurotransmitter that triggers pleasurable emotions.
• Fact 3: The smiley emoticon is bright sun yellow because the color depicts cheerfulness.
• Fact 4: The World Smile Foundation is a not-for-profit charitable organization that doesn’t just put smiles on our faces yearly but also advances the cause of children around the world. 
• Fact 5: Smile is a more contagious feeling than influenza. 
• Fact 6: Humans are born with the natural ability to smile
• Fact 7: Our neutral facial expression is a form of smiling.
• Fact 8: There are about 19 forms of smiles across different human faces.
• Fact 9: When you smile, it is the first thing people notice about you. 
• Fact 10: The Smiley Company, created after Harvey Ball made the first smiley face, has a corporate net worth pegged at $55 million annually. 

What Does Smile Day Mean to Flexispot?

At FlexiSpot, we are passionate about providing top quality ergonomic furniture for your home and office use. Our entire aim for manufacturing these user-friendly and valuable products is to put a smile on your face. So, you can only imagine our excitement to see that there is a day set aside to contribute to your smiles.

At FlexiSpot, World Smile Day is a day to evaluate our customer satisfaction, convenience, and health improvement. Seeing that a smile makes you healthier, we believe that our ergonomic furniture helps you stay strong and well in two ways. First, we protect your physical features from pains that come with prolonged use of furniture, and second, we make you smile in a way that keeps your stress down and your heart safer. 

With FlexiSpot furniture, you’ll stay motivated to work, remain productive, and inspired. In turn, you’ll spread the fulfillment you get from using FlexiSpot around the environment, rather than spread the frustration of painful, inconvenient office desks and chairs. In essence, we’re not making only our customers smile but since each smile is contagious, the whole world gets to smile with us.

For these reasons and more, World Smile Day is one of our best holidays at FlexiSpot. 

Why is this National Holiday Peculiar?

There are hundreds of holidays celebrated across the world each year but World Smile Day stands out for no mean reason. The national holiday is peculiar because it reminds us to show others around us that we care for ourselves and them likewise. With our physical faces beaming with smiles or our text emojis doing so on our behalf, the message is clear: we want the world to be a happy place. 

The holiday also provides a beacon of hope given the numerous sad events around the world. It simply shows that we are passionate about our emotional well-being in a world where anxiety, sadness, and anger are the most noticeable emotions. 

In a Nutshell

World Smile Day is a day to stay happy and spread love. More significantly, World Smile Day is a day to reflect on the events, people, and places that make us smile and appreciate them. So, say a word of love to someone around you, walk around with a smile, and perform a kind act today. And make a difference by making your smile transcend the first Friday in October.