National Smile Day May Help Hartford ~ The City Full of Frowns

Today (October 7th) is National Smile Day.  Like yawns, smiles are said to be contagious.  Smiles help raise our dopamine and serotonin levels which help fight stress and alleviate pain and depression.

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You may be familiar with the yellow smiley face seen on just about every piece of merchandise imaginable from helium balloons to bumper stickers to emojis every single day.  The man responsible for creating the little ball of happiness was Harvey Ball who actually created it for a State Mutual Life Insurance company campaign.   You may have also have seen an homage to this smiley face in Forrest Gump.

Harvey's goal was to spread goodwill and cheer.  Ironically, his harbinger of joy became too commercialized and destroyed his original intent.  To honor the initial intent of the smiley face, he decided to make the first Friday of October "World Smile Day".  We can all honor his memory (he passed in 2001) by smiling from ear to ear on this special day.

Here are some tips on how to celebrate National Smile Day from the handy dandy National Day Calendar:

• Do a random act of kindness for someone.
• Use a smiley face emoji on every text you send.
• Spread cheer by handing out smiley face stickers.
• Give a smile to everyone you come across.
• Tell someone a funny joke.
• Play happy songs like “Happy” by Pharrell Williams or “Don’t Worry Be Happy” by Bobby McFerrin.

It appears that Hartford can benefit from the tips on smiling as according to an article by the Patch a new in-depth study by Shiny Smile Veneers reports that Hartford came in 4th on the "least-smiling list of people."  Baltimore, Providence, and Detroit performed slightly worse than Hartford.  Perhaps those people had more of a grimace than a frown and hence came in with the gold, silver, and bronze.

According to some of the study's key findings:

• Hartford had just 32.9 percent of people smiling in the city’s photos.

• Many of the cities smiling the least were located in the Midwest as well as the East Coast.

• Nationally, 43 percent of all pictures analyzed had smiling faces.

Better luck next year Hartford, just put on a happy face and as the Joker says "If you gotta go...go with a smile."

Thanks for hanging out with me and I'll see you again real soon.  Put on an "Appy" face and download the i95 app for Android or Apple.