I’m sure you’ve heard time and again that you shouldn’t frown because it takes more muscles to do so than it does to smile. But what is the real value of a smile?

Study after study has proven there are many health benefits to smiling. A smile can turn an entire day around, and not just your day! Your smile is more powerful than you realize, and it can have a positive effect on all the people around you, even complete strangers.

Now, I’m not suggesting you walk around with a smile plastered on your face 24/7. In fact, I’m going to go ahead and strongly suggest you don’t do that, please—that’d just be creepy. But let’s take a minute to break down how a simple smile could affect someone.

The inner workings of each person’s everyday life are usually pretty mundane. Unglamorous interactions like going to the grocery store, filling up a car with gas, driving to and from school or work, and walking to and from where you need to be take up most of our time.

These activities are not inspiring, they’re not really much fun, but they are necessary things that we cannot skip over or get around. When someone’s having a bad day or even just a neutral day, the mundane fillings can drag on and really drain a person. But a gas station attendant or fast food cashier smiling warmly at you as they hand you your change can add a dash of color to your otherwise bleak day and change your whole attitude from that point forward.

Working in retail, I was taught the power of a smile. When you enter a store and the employee is complacent and doesn’t acknowledge you or greats you with a whimper of, “Hello…,” do you want to shop there? Probably not. But when you walk in a store and the employee is excited and greets you with a comforting, “Hello!” paired with a dazzling smile, you’re more inclined to spend time in that store.

Your smile has the power to affect those around you. Really everything you do has the power to affect those around you, but we won’t get too deep into that today.

Something I try to keep in mind when I’m going about my day, especially if I’m not having a great one, is that other people may be feeling this way too. It’s easy when you’re feeling down to let that negative energy take over and control the way you act. But ask yourself, “Do I want to add to the negativity or take action against it?” Hopefully, your answer is always the latter. By smiling, you’re helping the world feel better.

A smile is mostly effortless. I know we all have days when it seems impossible to smile, but those are the days during which it is most important to remember what you’ve read here today. A smile can mean anything. It can be supporting, comforting, and empowering. It can turn your day around, it can turn your best friend’s day around, or maybe even a stranger's. Each smile has more potential than people realize! Energy is contagious; don’t let negative people and attitudes ever deter you, and make a point to radiate positivity everywhere you go because it is such a rare thing to find nowadays.