Blog 7-Smile!

Ron Gutman did an excellent job of organizing and delivering his presentation.  His topic was very basic but he used good scientific evidence for support.  I was impressed that he was able to use facts and studies and still keep his presentation light and interesting.  Also, he made some points about smiling that could really be helpful in our negative and pessimistic world.  I learned that smiling can actually reduce stress and suppress stress related hormones in your body.  The most interesting thing that he mentioned was the fact that biologically we are wired to smile when we see others smiling.  This seemed fascinating to me and reminded me of the social yawn; when we see others yawning, we yawn.  I also thought it was interesting when he explained the studies about how the frequency of smiling relates to longevity.  The bigger and more frequent, the longer the life, and the more success.  I found this Ted Talk very inspirational because if I could learn to smile more and spread a little happiness, the world might just be a happier place.  If everyone in the world could do this, the world would be exponentially happier.

This talk, like Aimee Mullins deals with the value of happiness and how far it can take you.  As we were talking about in history, as we have become more sophisticated with science and technology, we have lost sight of the little things that make a big difference, like smiling.  Full of conflict and fear, the world's problems would be solved if as Ron Gutman said we all just smiled!