20 Things To Make Someone Smile

Here are 20 ways to turn that frown upside down.

1. Send some flowers to your partner at work.
2. Compliment a friend or work colleague on their appearance.
3. Donate something to charity.
4. Take a friend out to lunch.
5. Hug your partner for no reason.
6. Leave a joke on a friends answer machine.
7. Let someone know you miss them.
8. Make a surprise telephone call to your partner at work, just to say hi.
9. Hold a door open for someone walking behind you.
10. Send a card to a friend letting them know what a good friend they are.
11. Give up your seat on the train to someone when there aren't any left.
12. Share your umbrella on a rainy day.
13. Ask a friend if they need anything while you're out shopping.
14. When it's raining, plan an indoor picnic with your children.
15. Leave a love letter somewhere where your partner will find it.
16. Send someone an unusual and unexpected gift like sex toys.
17. Tell your child you're proud of them.
18. Tell someone you thought about them the other day.
19. Cook a surprise meal for your partner one night, especially if they normally do the cooking.
20. Tell your partner you love them.

Did you know it takes only 17 muscles to smile, but 43 to frown. Why waste all that energy frowning when you could just smile.

Here are 5 more facts about smiling.

1. Women smile more than men.
2. Smiling releases endorphins that make us feel better.
3. We are all born with the ability to smile, it's not something we learn from others.
4. A smile is a universal expression of happiness.
5. A smiling person is thought to be a more pleasant, attractive, sociable, sincere and competent than a non-smiling person.
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5 Ways to Get Yourself Motivated to Clean

1. Invite Someone Over To Your Home

How It Helps

Inviting someone to come over to your home, can be a great motivator to get things clean. Knowing that someone will be showing up at your home can give you a deadline to get things done. Suddenly you begin to look at your home as a guest might, and the undone tasks stand out waiting to be accomplished.

How It Might Backfire

If you invite someone to come over and don't give yourself enough time to accomplish the things you need to do, you can end up with an embarrassing situation. Make sure your deadline for yourself is realistic.

2. Try a New Cleaning Product

How It Helps

Trying a new product or cleaning gadget can be a lot of fun. Instead of looking at a chore as work, it can seem like an opportunity to discover a new tool that lightens your load.

The next time you've got a job you are procrastinating, search for a new product that might help you get it done.

How It Might Backfire

Although cleaning gadgets are fun and interesting, make sure you get rid of products or gadgets that don't perform the way you want them to. A cleaning pantry can quickly be filled with unwanted items that create clutter and prevent the useful tools from being easily accessed.

3. Try a New Scent

How It Helps

If you don't want to try an entirely new product, try a new scent. Scent makes a big difference in our mood and attitude. Try a new one and you may find yourself more excited and motivated to accomplish your chores.

How It Might Backfire

Watch out that you don't combine too many different scents. Scents can sometimes trigger irritation from guests and family members. Combining too many different kinds increases the chances that someone may react badly to one, or the combination of several in your home. Change scents slowly to find the right one for your family.

4. Clean Out Some Clutter

How it Helps

Even if you find only a small space or area to rid of clutter, the feeling of watching unwanted items being removed from your home is invigorating and freeing. Even cleaning out a small area can help you get motivated to tackle bigger projects. Use the 4 container method for projects large and small.

How It Could Backfire

Make sure that you limit yourself to a contained area or section of your home at one time. Trying to clear clutter from your entire home in one sitting is liable to be a big job and leave your home messier than when you began. Start in one room, or section of a room and get it clutter free and put back together before you begin a new project. Your motivation will keep you going, and it will be easier to leave off in the middle of a project and pick it back up later.

5. Rearrange a Room

How It Helps

Rearranging a room is a great way to create a fresh perspective and motivate yourself to clean and organize. Do a 15 Minute Cleanup in the room before you begin. Rearrange the furniture, rugs, artwork, and decorative items. Changing up a room often gives you more motivation to keep it clean and uncluttered. Seeing the results can often let your cleanliness spill over into other rooms of your home.

How It Can Backfire

Don't be fooled. To really get a fresh perspective by rearranging items, you'll need to do some cleaning. You'll be surprised what moving furniture around can lead you to find. If rearranging seems like too big a job, consider switching out just a few components of the room. You'll be surprised what just a small amount of changes can motivate you to do.
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If You Think It, It Will Come

Maybe you’ve heard the comment, “People don’t change.”
Well, in my business, people DO change. For the better.

I believe it is a 3-step Process:

1. Becoming aware of the need for change
2. Ready and willing to change
3. Taking action

That is all you need to transform your life. Your willingness to look at the inner working of your own mind, your ability and desire for change, and your commitment to a process and a practice, are the required elements for achieving your goals.

The movie, The Secret has gained a lot of attention and popularity. ”The Secret” that they’re referring to is the law of attraction. Thought is creative. Every thought you think and every feeling you feel is either bringing you closer to the things you want, or keeping them away. On a deeper level, not just your conscious thoughts, but your subconscious beliefs about yourself and what you deserve, is what creates your life situation. That’s where hypnotherapy comes in. Both your conscious and subconscious mind needs to be in agreement for you to see your dreams and desires manifesting in your life.

Hypnotherapy can assist in revealing ideas and beliefs you may not be aware of on a conscious level. If your subconscious belief system does not allow for abundance, love, prosperity or good health, it will block you from attaining your life goals. Most people would say that they want to be healthy, wealthy and wise, loved and understood. But how many of us truly are? Long-held subconscious beliefs are powerfully influencing. And they were established when you were a child, with the mind of a child. With the help of hypnosis and hypnotherapy, old thought patterns can be uncovered, explored and transformed into new, healthy positive beliefs that support you in achieving your goals and dreams.

There are two levels of mind: conscious and subconscious, and they have two separate functions. Your conscious mind is analytical, logical, and rational. It’s your ability to choose, and your will power. It is your thinking, reasoning mind. Your subconscious is your operating system. It’s the belief system you run on, and the seat of your emotions. It is your image and idea of who you are. Everything you’ve ever seen, heard and experienced is stored within your subconscious. Your deeper mind runs your body and maintains your habits. Whatever ideas you accept as truth, and impress upon it, will be accepted into your memory bank and acted upon. For example, if your programming is you’re not very bright, untalented and not good enough, it is highly unlikely that you will go after that dream job, big money, take risks or follow opportunities.

How do we get hypnotized? Hypnotic programming is al around us. The constant repetition of commercials and slogans encourage us to buy a product or service. Authority figures such as doctors, business leaders, or someone we know whom we admire and respect, can be very influential in convincing us what to do and be. In highly emotionalized states, we are open to receiving and creating beliefs about ourselves. This can work either for or against us. Think of a motivational speaker getting the crowd revved up. Excited and inspired, the crowd is susceptible to receiving and internalizing the speaker’s words.

Conversely, in the heat of an argument or traumatic event, negative words can pierce your heart and leave their mark on your psyche. Those words become the internal dialogue we listen to all our lives. Unfortunately, we are conditioned and programmed as young children, with out fully mature reasoning capabilities. Events occur, we interpret them, and make decisions about whom we are. Maybe you’ve heard the phrase, “Show me the child at seven and I’ll show you the man.” Those same ideas, decisions and beliefs accepted as a child, continue on and are reinforced and played out as we grow and develop. Hence, if you’ve decided you can never have what you want, you are “stuck” in a mediocre job, unfulfilling relationships, and a general lack of motivation to go after your dream.

Only once you’ve changed those beliefs about yourself on a deeper level, will you see change occurring in your life. As you modify and update how you perceive yourself, the right people, opportunities and circumstances will present themselves. Positive self-talk and the power of strong emotion, propel you toward attaining your goals. See yourself as you’d like to be, picture it in your mind. Feel yourself having what you want, get excited about what could be, and claim it as your own. The power to be who you truly are is within your grasp and within your own mind. Your ability to choose and reconstruct your life is true freedom and empowerment.
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Children With Cerebral Palsy Have Similar Quality Of Life To Other Children

Professor Allan Colver, Sir James Spence Institute, Newcastle University, Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle, UK and colleagues selected 1,174 children with cerebral palsy in seven European Countries, of which 818 participated in the study. Of these, 318 with severe intellectual impairment could not self-report (and will be subject to a separate study later), but 500 children self-reported their QoL using KIDSCREEN, an instrument which assesses quality of life across 10 categories.

The researchers found that for children with cerebral palsy, type and severity of impairments did not affect QoL for in six KIDSCREEN categories: psychological wellbeing, self-perception, social support, school environment, perception of financial resources, and social acceptance.

However they found that specific impairments were associated with poorer QoL in four catgories. Children with poorer walking ability had poorer physical wellbeing; children with intellectual impairment had lower moods and emotions and less autonomy, and children with speech difficulty had poorer relationships with their parents. Further they found that pain reduced children’s QoL across all categories.

The authors say: “Whereas specific domains of QoL with cerebral palsy are associated with specific impairments, QoL on most aspects of life is not associated with impairments and is therefore likely to be determined largely by social and environmental factors, although these might differ between children with cerebral palsy and those with no disability.”

From the point of view of a non-disabled adult, it may seem surprising that children with cerebral palsy view their QoL as similar to children in the general population. However from the child’s perspective, their impairment is incorporated in their sense of self from birth, and they embrace growth, development and living with the same excitement as non-disabled children.

The authors say: “Parents can be upset when their child is diagnosed with cerebral palsy, but they can now be reassured that most children with cerebral palsy who are capable of providing information when 8-12 years old experience similar QoL to that of other children their age.”

They conclude by saying that there is widespread acceptance of the need for disabled children to be integrated fully into society. They say: “The change now needed concerns attitudes. Pity and sorrow should not be directed to disabled children because our findings indicate they experience most of life as do non-disabled children. Therefore, maximum effort is needed to support the social and educational policies that recognise the similarity between the lives of disabled children and those of other children, and that ensure their rights as citizens, rather than as disabled children, to participate in society as fully as other children.”

In an accompanying Comment, Dr Olaf Dammann, Department of Pediatrics, Tufts-New England Medical Center, Boston, USA and Dr Michael O’Shea, Department of Pediatrics, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA, say: “The efforts of Dickinson and colleagues to understand quality of life in children with cerebral palsy are commendable. Their findings offer both reassurance to parents of children with this disorder and potential strategies to clinicians seeking to improve the quality of life for affected children.

“Moreover, in their study Dickinson and colleagues provide food for thought for clinicians who offer guidance to parents of newborn babies at risk of cerebral palsy.”

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by The Lancet.
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Reading Emotions Through Expression and Body Language

Effective communication does not just mean knowing the right words to say. Emotions and body language also play a very important role in getting your message across. In fact, body language says a lot about what you're feeling and thinking as of the moment. People who are transparent could get themselves in trouble.

How do you know if somebody is anxious, angry, happy, surprised, or sad by judging only his body movements? Here are some ways you can read emotions by observing body language.

If a person is happy he...

- smiles a lot. We might even find him doing a little skip as he walks.
- has relaxed facial muscles and fluid movements
- hums or sings to himself

If a person is surprised he...

- suddenly opens his mouth (hence, the expression 'my jaw dropped')
- suddenly takes a step back
- widens his eyes or clamps his hand over his mouth

If a person is anxious he...

- has a pale face and dry lips
- starts perspiring profusely
- fidgets a lot and has shifty eyes
- keeps shaking his leg or tapping his foot
- makes sudden movements after a while of being still
- stutters

If a person is angry he...

- pounds his fist on the table and uses a loud voice to speak
- clenches his fist and leans forward when talking to you
- bares his teeth and appears to be snarling as he talks
- has tense muscles

If a person is sad he...

- has trembling lips
- is not able to look you straight in the eye and sometimes even has tears forming
- slumps his body
- uses a rather flat or weak tone of voice

These are only a few of the indicators of the key emotions any human being feels. Some might even overlap. For instance, a person with shifty eyes may be either lying or just nervous; so, in order for you to effectively interpret what he is feeling, you have to take the context of the conversation in point.

When you think about it, part of body language reading is skill and part is sensitivity. There really is no clear-cut rule as to what kind of body language pertains to what emotion, but there are general signals that can be found in most people.

In short, reading body language does not take knowledge of rocket science. Because body language is part of daily living, anybody who does not exhibit any kind of body language is considered wooden, as with a mannequin that has just one expression and pose all throughout. Because we are humans, we succumb to our emotions sometimes.
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