Give Us a Smile

Today is World Smile Day, and my mission for the day is to put a smile on your face. So, here goes:

Q. Why does a chicken coop have two doors?

A. Because, if it had four, it would be a chicken sedan.

Now that I have you smiling, I’m going to tell you why you should keep smiling.

To Help Other People

According to a study from the Center for Functional MRI at the University of California at San Diego, when other people see a smile on your face (and vice versa), it activates the medial basotemporal lobes in the brain of the person who sees your smile and causes them to smile in return. By this simple act, you are improving their lives.

To Improve Your Life

Smiling can improve your life (and others lives) in numerous ways. It can:

• Lower stress and anxiety. Researchers in the Department of Psychology at the University of Kansas gave study participants stressful tasks and asked half of the participants to smile while completing the tasks. Those people registered lower heart rates during stress recovery than the participants who weren’t encouraged to smile. Other studies have shown that smiling releases endorphins, which reduces stress.
• Boost your immune system. Hungarian researchers studied hospitalized children who were visited by storytellers and puppeteers who made them smile and laugh. These children had higher illness-fighting white blood cell counts than children who weren’t visited.
• Make you more comfortable in unfamiliar situations. We all prefer the familiar. A study published in Psychological Science, the flagship journal of the Association for Psychological Science found that a happy mood removes the innate preference for familiar surrounding and makes people more comfortable in unfamiliar situations and surroundings.
• Make you more attractive to others. This study reported in the European Journal of Social Psychology confirms what romance authors already know—a smile, grin, curve up of the corners of the mouth—all ramp up attraction between two people.

Giveaway

And here’s something else to make you smile. I’m giving away one print (US only) and one e-book copy of my October 4, release Mending the Motocross Champion to two lucky commenters (please state your preference).

Physical therapist Dana VanAlstyne’s dreams of a family were lost in the dust of a motocross racecourse. Although she’s filled her life with her work and church activities, it hasn’t filled the empty space inside her. Nor has it eased the heartache of being abandoned by a man who wasn’t ready for a wife and children. Now her dream is to open her own private practice. All she needs is the capital to make that happen.

Anton, “Mac,” Macachek may be the top professional motocross racer in the country but he still has one race that matters more to him: winning a championship at Unadilla Raceway and showing the hometown folks the bad boy did amount to something. But when a horrific accident sidelines those plans, he makes a deal with the woman he once loved with all his heart. A woman who abandoned him. If Dana will get him back in racing shape, he’ll fund her new practice. Then an even more dangerous risk is revealed. If Mac races again, he could die.

Does Dana have enough faith to risk her heart again? She loved Mac once, but feared he loved motocross racing more than he loved her. If she helps him mend his broken body, will it also mend her broken heart? Or will it all be lost again in the dust and danger of a motocross racetrack?

Buy:

And if you haven’t bought your copy of Sweet Romance Christmas 3, scroll up and click on the cover picture.

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For Amazon bestselling sweet and inspirational author Jean C. Gordon, writing is a natural extension of her love of reading. From that day in first grade when she realized t-h-e was the word the, she’s been reading everything she can put her hands on. Jean and her college-sweetheart husband share a 175-year-old farmhouse in Upstate New York—where she sets her books—with their daughter and her family. Their son lives nearby. Connect with Jean on Facebook, as @JeanCGordon on Twitter, or on JeanCGordon.com.