Facts to make you smile!

• 30% of Britons claim that when they first meet someone they judge them by their smile.
• Smiling is great exercise! We smile by contracting fifteen separate muscles on our face, and 230 in our body.
• 70% of Brits agree that having a good smile helps build their confidence, psychologically and socially - and it helps their love life, too.
• The average smile lasts three seconds.
• 26% of us don't like smiling openly because our teeth aren¿t white or straight.
• Britons smile by pulling our lips back and upwards and exposing our lower teeth, Americans are more likely simply to part their lips and stretch the corners of their mouths.
• 80% per cent of us think that having a smile they are proud of makes them feel more confident socially and psychologically.
• One in four people have been put off going out with someone because of their smile.
• The most common British smile is called the Duchenne smile after Guillaume Duchenne, a 19th century French doctor.
• Smiling reduces stress-related hormones and increases heart rate and blood circulation.
• If money was no object, half of Brits would whiten their teeth and one in three would straighten teeth for that perfect Hollywood smile. Bling bling!
• Smiling aids your love life! If you smile at a stranger across a crowded room they are twice as likely to approach you.
• Smiling stimulates the human brain to releasing morphine-like chemicals that inhibit infection - and lessen pain!
• So, smiling really is good for you!

* findings taken from British Dental Health Foundation Survey; research by the Dental Institute at Guys, Kings and St Thomas; Brain Respiration by Ilchi Lee; and Understanding Emotion by Dacher Keltne.