In the iconic words of Louis Armstrong, “When you're smiling, keep on smiling — the whole world smiles with you.” It turns out Armstrong had more than catchy lyrics; he had science to back him up.

That science demonstrates the simple acts of smiling and laughing have health benefits. Keep your smile healthy, and it will keep you healthy in these four ways:

1. Smiling relieves stress

Researchers at the University of Kansas found that smiling reduces stress — and the bigger the smile, the greater the stress reduction.

“These findings show that smiling during brief stressors can help to reduce the intensity of the body’s stress response, regardless of whether a person actually feels happy,” according to psychologicalscience.com.

The study differentiated between standard smiles, which use muscles around the mouth, and genuine or Duchenne smiles, which use muscles around the mouth and eyes. While both groups benefited from smiling, participants who genuinely smiled had lower heart rate levels after recovering from performing stressful activities.

“The next time you are stuck in traffic or are experiencing some other type of stress, you might try to hold your face in a smile for a moment,” researcher Sarah Pressman said. “Not only will it help you ‘grin and bear it’ psychologically, but it might actually help your heart health as well.”

2. Laughing lowers pain

University of Oxford researchers showed that laughter can increase people’s ability to tolerate pain. Experimenters asked subjects to watch videos and live performances and found the subsequent laughter created an “endorphin-mediated opiate effect.”

“Relaxed social (Duchenne) laughter is associated with feelings of wellbeing and heightened affect, a proximate explanation for which might be the release of endorphins,” researchers wrote.

They also said laughter may be a crucial part of social bonding.

3. Smiling is contagious

When discussing health, contagions are usually not the goal, but this is something you want to catch. Researchers have found that brain chemistry encourages people to smile at each other.

“Emotions are patterns of expressive, behavioral, physiological and subjective feeling responses,” according to University of Wisconsin researchers. "Activation of one component can therefore automatically activate other components.”

That means when you smile at people, they’re likely to smile back, so enjoy being contagious whenever and wherever you can.

4. Laughing boosts heart health

University of Maryland Medical Center cardiologists discovered people who suffered from heart disease, the No. 1 killer in the United States, were less likely to find humor in life compared to others. In fact, patients “with heart disease were 40 percent less likely to laugh in a variety of situations compared to people of the same age without heart disease,” according to researchers.

Their study showed having a sense of humor in positive and negative situations is connected to having a healthy heart.

"We don't know yet why laughing protects the heart, but we know that mental stress is associated with impairment of the endothelium, the protective barrier lining our blood vessels,” said UMMC Center for Preventive Cardiology Director Michael Miller. “This can cause a series of inflammatory reactions that lead to fat and cholesterol build-up in the coronary arteries and ultimately to a heart attack."

Researchers suggest, in addition to exercising, eating healthy and not smoking, people incorporate laughter into their daily routine.

Smile and laugh every day

As these studies show, smiling is one of the easiest ways you can do something as basic as boosting your mood to something as lifesaving as preventing a heart attack. Whether you share stories with family, watch funny videos or relive favorite memories with friends, keep smiles and laughter in your every day to ensure many more days to come.

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