Contagious smiling (and frowning and scowling and so on) is the basis of reading others' emotions and registering how you should, in turn, feel.

When you're smiling, the whole world smiles with you

We tend to mimic the smiles or frowns of others because it helps us better understand what other people are feeling, allowing us to respond appropriately.

Evidence shows that an instinct for facial mimicry allows us to empathize with and even experience other people's feelings.

“Facial mimicry certainly plays some role, and perhaps a key role, in understanding other people’s emotional states,” Dr. Kevin Ochsner

A person's ability to recognize and "share" others' emotions can be inhibited when they can't mimic faces, even from something as simple as long-term pacifier use.

you mimic their expression unconsciously, which then tells your brain what to feel. All this happens in a few hundred milliseconds.

We are unconsciously learning things by what we see and that's why infants mimic their parents behavior. When they smile to them, they smile back.

Each time you smile, you throw a little feel-good party in your brain. The act of smiling activates neural messaging that benefits your health and happiness.

smiling activates the release of neuropeptides that work toward fighting off stress.

the serotonin release brought on by your smile serves as an anti-depressant/mood lifter.

when you view a person smiling, you actually feel rewarded.

When you smile,you are creating a symbiotic relationship that allows both of you to release feel-good chemicals in your brain, activate reward centers, make you both more attractive, and increase the chances of you both living longer, healthier lives.

First stage: You see an expressive face You need to know what the expression means so you can react effectively.

Second stage: You simulate the facial expression Simulation uses the same areas of your brain that cause your facial expressions- it may therefore cause you to mimic the expression.

Third stage: The simulation tells you how it feels to make that expression The context or your knowledge about the expresser may have an influence.

This quick, automatic, and unconscious process allows you to connect the subtle emotion signals of others to your own emotion experiences.

Smiling makes us happier Smiling triggers a reduction in stress-enhancing hormones and increases the production of mood-enhancing hormones.

Even forcing a “fake” smile when you’re not truly feeling it has been shown to reduce stress and result in more positive feelings.

Genuine smiles might help people see eye-to-eye during interactions. People who often make genuine smiles may have an easier time convincing others to adopt their goals.

The world is simply a better place when you smile.

Only during hard times do people come to understand how difficult it is to be master of their feelings and thoughts.

Academics tend to have wonderfully infantile senses of humor.

One can say with reasonable confidence that the likelihood of something analogous to a human evolving is really pretty high.

The battle for women's rights has been largely won.

There is a kind of structure for a story that was peculiarly compelling for the radio. I thought I had invented it atom-by-atom sitting in an editing booth in Washington on M Street when I was in my 20s. Then I found out that it is one of the oldest forms of telling a story - it was the structure of a sermon.

Steel is prince or pauper.

Mercy is what moves us toward God, while justice makes us tremble in his sight.

My advice to new artists is to embrace a broader concept of timelessness than vintage or retro.

When I was broke, no one ever offered to buy me a beer. Now that I have quite a bit of money, everybody tries to buy me beers. Where were all these people back when I was in college and broke?

I think it's important to remember that music supervision is not just about a fantastic record collection or knowledge of music, although that certainly helps for aspiring music supervisors.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I . . . I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

I might have some character traits that some might see as innocence or naive. That's because I discovered peace and happiness in my soul. And with this knowledge, I also see the beauty of human life.

For far too long we've allowed the other side to paint us as racist, as sexist, inhumane war mongers - well, today as a conservative black Republican and former solider, I'm here to set that record straight.

No level of border security, no wall, doubling the size of the border patrol, all these things will not stop the illegal migration from countries as long as a 7-year-old is desperate enough to flee on her own and travel the entire length of Mexico because of the poverty and the violence in her country.

Engineers are not mere technicians and should not approve or lend their name to any project that does not promise to be beneficent to man and the advancement of civilization.

Obviously, I've seen what the press has done to my cousins. I would never let that rule my life, but I'm not the kind of person to rebel or do things. I don't know. I don't let the potential for bad press dictate who I am, but I keep that in mind. How can you not?

The Russian people have their own cultural code, their own tradition.

It's just wrong to work your whole life to build up a nest egg, build your own business - you pass away, and Uncle Sam can swoop in and take away nearly half of everything you've earned. Can you imagine that? Having to sell off most of your land just to keep it from the government, just to save the house.

Life is a dream made real through the power of our imaginations.

I think we are all coming to realize the web in all its manifestations is a sucking time hole.

I once had a large gay following but I ducked into an alleyway and lost him.

When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you.

I didn't really play dress up when I was a kid, and I'm really T-shirt and jeans-y.

I spent a lot of winters in my childhood flying kites with my brother, with my cousins, with friends in the neighborhood. It's what we did in the winter. Schools close down. There was not much to do.