It’s World Smile Day today, Friday 4th October. That Friday feeling usually makes me break out in a grin, I have to say. Friday is my favourite day of the week because you have all of the anticipation of the weekend ahead plus I get to have pizza on a Friday night, happy days.

World Smile Day was developed by the designer of the original smiley face image, now used in millions of text messages as an emoticon every single day. Harvey Ball wanted to create something more lasting from his design and so World Smile Day came into being, designed to be a day when we all focused on making someone else smile by being kind, an act of kindness, an unexpected gift or just being extra nice to someone with no expectation of reward 

This month in the Phase blog are thinking about community and how we live alongside each other. World Smile Day seems like a perfect place to start. How else can community start if it isn’t from a simple individual, thoughtful personal interaction?

Little acts of kindness and love not only make someone else happy but they are good for us as well. There’s evidence that being kind to someone else releases feel-good hormones serotonin and oxytocin so we benefit as well.

So shall we start October creating a smile for someone else? Your challenge is to do something that makes someone smile in the next couple of days. Make someone a cup of tea, compliment them on their outfit or their cheerfulness, help someone up the stairs with their pushchair, let someone in front of you in the supermarket queue, make someone you know a cake for no reason.

Let us know if you give it a try and how you get on…

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