Practice Name

Specialty

City, State

Phone

1479 Ygnacio Valley Rd #203

Walnut Creek, CA 94598

Tel: 925.934.1340

Fax: 925.256.7790

Patient Information

 

Click here to read our Patient Testimonials.

A member of the California Dental Association

A member of the American Dental Association

The Importance of a Smile

The Science of Smiling

Cosmetic dentistry is not just for people in their 20s and 30s. You can have the smile you desire at any age. A study of the American Dental Association in 1998 found that nearly half of survey respondents age 65 and older selected a smile as the first thing they notice about people. Almost 80 percent in this age group also reported that a smile is very important to a person’s appearance.

Have you ever noticed when someone smiles at you, even if you are angry, it is hard to not smile back. It is human nature to want to return a smile to someone. A smile signals warmth, friendliness, and good feelings.

Believe it or not, it is easier for you to smile than to frown. Research states that it takes over 40 muscles to frown and only 12 to smile. According to Frank McAndrews, a psychology professor at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, a smile is especially interesting because you do not have to learn it. A smile is preprogrammed behavior. If you’ve ever grinned into the face of an infant you have probably seen the smile come right back at you. Even children born blind show the same kinds of smile under the same situations as sighted people. In other words, our faces were made to smile!

Because smiling is something that people often do when they feel happy, it is a popular idea that smiling may actually make someone feel happy. Some studies suggest that something as easy as smiling may actually make you feel better or help you see the lighter, funnier side of things.

Researchers have learned that happiness is a lot easier on our bodies. A smile is a contagious sign of happiness. The health advantages of being jovial and relaxed as opposed to being stressed out and angry are numerous. In fact, researchers are now offering “smile therapy” to cancer patients since smiles are proven to alter moods and body chemistry to our benefit.

In other words, science agrees, a confident smile is good for you as well as others.

The Importance of a Smile

“A smile costs nothing, but gives much. It enriches those who receive, without making poorer those who give. It takes but a moment, but the memory of it sometimes lasts forever. None is so rich or mighty that he can get along without it, and none is so poor but that he can be made rich by it. A smile creates happiness in the home, fosters good will in business, and is the countersign of friendship. It brings rest to the weary, cheer to the discouraged, sunshine to the sad, and is nature’s best antidote for trouble. Yet it cannot be bought, begged, borrowed or stolen, for it is something that is of no value to anyone until it is given away. Some people are too tired to give you a smile. Give them one of yours, as non needs a smile so much as he who has no more to give.”

-- Believed to be of the writings of Samson Raphael Hirsch

Your Smile – Did you know?

What is a Smile? A “Smile” is – (1) a facial expression in which the eyes brighten and the corners of the mouth curve slightly upward and which expresses amusement and pleasure; (2) a pleasant and encouraging appearance.

-- Websters 9th Collegiate Dictionary

Smile! It’s Contagious

Smiling is contagious, you can catch it like the flu,
When someone smiled at me today, I started smiling too.

I passed around the corner, and someone saw my grin,
When he smiled I realized, I’d passed it on to him.

I thought about that smile, the realized its worth,
A single smile, just like mine, could travel around the earth.

So, if you feel a smile begin, don’t leave it undetected –
Let’s start the epidemic quick and get the world infected!!!

-- Author Unknown

A confident SMILE enriches those who give it. It only takes a moment, but its memory lingers forever.

So, let’s work together to create your dream smile.