Do You Smile Enough??
I heard a statistic on the radio (and found a corresponding article here) stating that children smile about 400 times a day. Hearing that made me smile to myself. But guess how many times the average adult smile? Only 20 times a day! That made me so sad to hear!
Now of course I could not easily find how the study was conducted - did they study subjects in one country or many? Were the adults of similar ages or similar stages in life? What was the ratio of adults with children vs adults without? Married or single? In the midst of a negative life event or during a period where everything feels "normal" to them? So those are questions about the report I'd like to find answers to when I have more time. However, I will just look at the statistic (400 smiles for children, 20 smiles for adults) for this post.
Now I completely understand that adults have more responsibilities in life compared to children, which might answer my question "why do adults smile so little?" And perhaps different people have a natural tendency to smile more or less than the average person. And if people have jobs where they don't interact with people at all or find no reason to smile during the day, then they would have fewer smiles per day, unless they read or watched something humorous to them.
I've read a few different times, in psychology text books in college and various magazine articles since, that if you smile when you are unhappy, eventually your brain will be tricked into a better mood because it is understanding that your face muscles are in a smiling position. I've tried this trick a few times, and it seemed to work. It probably wouldn't work every time, but it's nice to know we can trick ourselves into be a little more happy.
I think that I would like to challenge myself to smile more. Maybe I will smile more to strangers I pass in the market. Maybe I will smile to my husband and family members more. I believe that smiles are a "universal language" that can be shared between all people, and that they are contagious. I think I smile more than 20 times a day, but I would like to close the gap between 20 smiles and 400 smiles. Maybe this will keep me young at heart!
4 comments:
I used not to smile. I see no reason to smile because everything aroudn us is so chaotic. How to smile when there is an ongoing war in the Middle East. How to be happy, chirpy and all bubbly when there are so many people out there starving?
After starting working in Japan. Customer service is consider the weapon to success in business. Smiling is very important. During the first few months, I had to force myself to smile, given that I know the benefits of smiling. I still have to force myself.
However, I realized that smiling naturally just sort of make things so much easier, smiling from the heart, time just flies so much faster. And when I smile, no customers can complain that I have bad attitude. One idiotic customer wrote a complaint about me not smiling at her and was busy 'talking' to other staffs during work. The talking part is totally cock and bull. Because where I work, when we talk when we are working, especially in front of the customer is probably all about work and instructions.
After that complaint, I make sure I give the 2nd best smile, after Namiki-san. She has a killer smile. And she uses it very well, the more difficult the person is the more you gotta smile, she said. :)
Sometimes it is very difficult to smile, but when your job involves customer satisfaction, sometimes it's the only way to deal with a customer! Maybe that customer was a person who makes false complaints often anyway, some people are just like that.
Who is Namiki-san? I've been trying to search Google for her. I thought maybe she was a famous model or singer.
Oh, LOL!!!
Namiki(並木）san is a staff in our shop. You wont find her om Google. LOL. Silly Kim Lim :p
She treats everyone with her smile, the bigger her smile is the more she dislikes that particular person. LOL xp
Haha! That is a funny mixup for me!
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