Heart
Sit comfortably, or even lie down. As you reach your hands up into the sky, draw a heart in the air. Inside that heart are lots of little smiley faces, hundreds of them. They grow to thousands, millions, billions and trillions of smiley faces.
There are now over 70 trillion smiley faces in your imaginary heart in the air. Using your hands, draw all those trillions of smiley faces into your heart.
The heart smiles in response. A big, warm and cuddly smile. The heart sends those smiley faces to your cells and a smiley face attaches itself to each and every cell in your body.
Every cell smiles and sends a smile back to your heart. Your heart is now overflowing with smiles and sends those smiles to all corners of the universe.
Feel the smiles in your heart, in every cell and radiating out to the far reaches of infinity. Feel how easy it is for your lips and face to smile when there is a smile in your heart.
Take a few moments and luxuriate in that feeling. It’s OK to do nothing, just for a few moments.
In this busy life, we seem always to be doing something. Take a moment to just be. If you feel so inclined, take a deep breath and sigh it out.
How does that feel?
As you luxuriate in that feeling, squeeze your left thumb with your right hand. In NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming), this is called setting an anchor.
Any time you want to have this same feeling, all you have to do is squeeze your left thumb with your right hand and the feeling is triggered. This is a way to access a smile and the feeling that comes with it. You now have a technique to access smiling at will, regardless of what stressors you may have in life. Many thanks to Marja Pirie, Certified Laughter Yoga Teacher Extraordinaire for this technique.
Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing. -Mother Teresa
Benefits of Smiling
Smiling changes your mood
Next time you are feeling down, try putting on a smile. There’s a good chance your mood will change for the better. Smiling can trick the body into helping you change your mood.
Smiling relieves stress
Stress can be seen clearly in the face. Smiling helps to prevent us from looking tired and overwhelmed. When you are stressed, put on a smile. Smiling will reduce your stress and you will be able to think clearly to take action.
Smiling boosts your immune system
Smiling helps the immune system to work better. When you smile, immune function improves possibly because you are more relaxed.
Smiling lowers your blood pressure
When you smile, there is a measurable reduction in your blood pressure. Give it a try if you have a blood pressure monitor at home.
Smiling helps you stay positive
Try this test: Smile. Now try to think of something negative without losing the smile. It’s hard. When we smile our body is sending the rest of us a message that “Life is good!” Stay away from depression, stress and worry by smiling.
Smiling releases endorphins, natural pain killers and serotonin
Studies have shown that smiling releases endorphins, natural pain killers and serotonin. Together these three make us feel good. Smiling is a natural drug.
Smiling makes us attractive
We are drawn to people who smile. There is an attraction factor. We want to know a smiling person and figure out what is so good. Frowns, scowls and grimaces all push people away. A smile draws them in.
You have two missions this week, should you decide to accept: Whenever you find you are not smiling inside, squeeze your left thumb with your right hand and notice your inner smile. Time commitment: About 4 seconds.
Whenever you feel a buildup of tension or stress, take a moment, breathe in deeply and sigh it out. Time commitment: about 6 seconds.
Review: You will remember I said this was to be simple, and also time-efficient. That’s why we make note of the time commitment for each protocol. Time commitments so far:
Protocol # Minimum Time Optimum Time
1 15 seconds x 4= 1 minute 15 seconds x 12= 3 minutes
2 45 seconds x 2= 1.5 minutes 1 minute x 2= 2 minutes
3 5 minute 15 minutes
4 4 & 6 seconds each 4 & 6 seconds each
For protocol #4, it’s hard to even consider it a time commitment. It is more a commitment of choosing an alternative response to stress. We are responding to stress and tension situations already. This is just replacing one response with another, so there is no extra time needed. By now I hope you have chosen to increase the laughter to at least 5 minutes a day, in which case:
Bare Bones Minimum Daily Time Commitment: 7 & 1/2 minutes a day. If you choose to optimize: Optimum Daily Time Commitment: 20 minutes a day.
You will no doubt have noticed the similarity and overlap of protocols #1 and #4. You can drop one or the other, or alternate the two. It all amounts to smiling on the inside. Again, it is much better to start out small and build later. Now, once again, it is time to stop reading and put this manual away. Take at least one day to one week to work/play with the Inner Smile Anchor and the Sigh. See ya next time.
