In the car, on the way to my friend Kenyan's house with a best friend I had found in college, I sat and listened to Crane.
Crane's this new band me and my friends found on my birthday. They were doing a Sublime cover tribute at a club called Zydeco, down town. That night was when I had decided that I needed to finalize what I wanted to do for the first lesson.
We walked into the club, and the crowd was pitiful. There was a bouncer, a bartender, a visibly drunk couple, and a random guy standing next to the bathroom... and then there was us. We were 4 bodies strong (2 girls, 2 guys). There was Waysha and her boyfriend, Kenyan. Then there was Ben, Kenyan's friend, and me.
We stood there for a minute. We just listened and there was no one on the dance floor. Some time passed and I just thought, "it's going to be up to us to make this night not suck." So, I asked WaYSha to dance and she greeted me with a smile. We got up from our seats that we had taken 30 minutes in.
I'm usually very shy when it comes to dancing, but I swear smiling helped me enjoy the experience more. When Waysha and I danced it felt like the air was electric. I swear our smiles mad all the difference... I kind of believe we raised the vibration of the entire set, because after us a whole flock of intoxicated 18-20 somethings filled the dance floor.
The next day I decided to look into the true power of smiles and I found out about a phenomenon THAT EXPLAINED MY EXPERIENCE WITH Waysha.. "According to neuroscientist Marco Iacoboni, we all posses something called mirror neurons, cells in the pre-moter cortex and inferior parietal cortex that are activated when we perform a given action as well as when we witness someone else performing it. And when it comes to smiling, mirror neurons respond to the acts of both seeing and doing." Apart from this, I looked into a lot more that I'll link in this blog post. But, to be honest, I don't really need all the scienticistuff to make me see the power of smiling.
I KNOW that smiling makes a difference.
Here's a Huff Post Article that's worth a read:: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/08/smiling-benefits_n_6598840.html
And... a Forbes article on how fake smiles are just as good as the real ones: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/08/smiling-benefits_n_6598840.html
A peer reviewed article on the effects of smiling: https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-107759752/the-effect-of-smiling-on-helping-behavior-smiling
The effects of smiling obn the body: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cutting-edge-leadership/201206/there-s-magic-in-your-smile
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