Your weekly dose of mental sunshine...

This week’s mental sunshine is one of my favourites

Not only is it ridiculously simple, it's also really effective at brightening your day.

And hopefully not just your day either!

This week’s tip is to make eye contact and smile at someone.

Obviously this one will be a little tricky if you’re wearing a face mask - but even then, if it's a real smile (look up Duchenne Smile) it will come from your eyes and people will see it.

It’s so easy to go through our days without really interacting with the people around us.

You can even avoid speaking to the cashier in your local supermarket with the introduction of self-service checkouts.

That’s ok if you’re not feeling sociable - but in the long term, not actually making a connection with the people around you can leave you feeling isolated.

Making eye contact with someone, smiling at them, making that connection is such a simple thing to do - but it can really make a difference to your mood.

You don’t have to stop and have a chat if you don’t feel like it - just smile as you walk past them.

Infect others with happiness with a simple smile...

Try it out, and see how you feel.

If you’re walking around the town, make a game of seeing how many people you can get to smile back at you.

I find that doing this has a cumulative effect on my mood - by the time I get home I feel really uplifted.

Human beings are social creatures; we’re meant to interact with each other.

For almost two years now we’ve been keeping our distance and that takes its toll.

Smiling at the people around you might just help to improve your mood -

And spreading some of that mental sunshine to the people around you.

Smiles are more contagious than Covid, I’m sure of it!

So go on - infect others with happiness

Catch up on previous weekly doses of mental sunshine here

And if you are new to my weekly doses of mental sunshine you may like to pop over and join our a photo a day for wellness group.

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