A genuine smile can make you feel good on the inside while looking good on the outside, but did you know that there are people out there who struggled to be able to smile in the first place? It’s not that they don’t realize that stretching their mouths is what’s going to make them smile, but trying to fake a smile actually has the opposite effect of making you feel and look attractive and trustworthy.
Smiling at the wrong time or using certain micro expressions can stop you from smiling effectively. If you have missing teeth, you may not smile because your confidence is gone and perhaps you can’t afford dental implants right now. Learning to work with what you’ve got can help you to smile better and improve your interactions with other people. This will make people around you feel more confident and comfortable to be in your presence. So, we’ve put together a short list of tips to help you to learn how to smile better.
- Use muscle memory. When you are laughing at something funny on the TV or something funny in a book, your face will immediately break into a smile. This muscle memory is exactly what will remind you what a natural smile is. Next time you throw your head back with laughter, remember what that smile feels like. It should have crows feet around the eyes, raised cheekbones and that ache around your cheek muscles because you’ve been smiling for so long. You’ll also remember that your mouth will curve upwards and your eyes will be slightly squinted.
- Look at your smile in photos. You should be able to spot which of your smiles are authentic and which ones are not so confident. Looking through your own photos of genuine smiles versus fake ones over the years can help you to remember how to smile. You could even look at pictures of other people and their smiles and decide whether they are posing for a picture or really smiling because they’re happy.
- Learn to smile with your eyes. Models do this in pictures, but whether you are wearing a mask or not, you can smile with your eyes and show genuine affection and happiness through your eyes rather than through your teeth. It’s a good way to convey positivity and kindness, and you’ll be relieved to know that people can see how genuinely happy you are just with your eyes and not with your mouth. If you learn to smile with your eyes, sit in front of a mirror and practice what it looks like when you genuinely smile and how your eyes respond.
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