Day 54 - • Smile when you talk on the phone – it makes your voice friendly.

When I'm not having the best day and a friend says something to make me laugh or smile, within seconds I automatically feel better. I remember learning about Charles Darwin in college and was fascinated by some of his ideas. Mr. Darwin was the first person to present the idea that emotional responses influence our feelings; his exact words we're "the expression by outward signs of an emotion intensifies it". Of course, there we're many psychologists and scientists after Mr. Darwin that supported his theory.

With that being said, I'm sure you've heard the expression "if you smile over the phone the person on the other end will sense it" but like me, you probably wondered if that was even possible. So I went ahead and researched the theory to see if I could find some data to support it and came upon some interesting information.

According to an article on Discovery News, a recent study proves that human being's can differentiate vocal intonation between a smile, a non-smile, and different types of smiles; "smiling affects how we speak, to the point that listeners can actually identify the type of smile based on sound alone".  And being that 84% of the overall message on aphone has to do with your tone of voice, making sure that you are giving your "smiling tone" not only puts the other person in a better mood, but smiling changes your mood into a good mood as well.

We've all experienced awful customer service over the phone, and that really bad phone call which you wish you didn't have to be on, but if smiles can be detected over a phone, why not cheer yourself up by smiling and maybe the person on the other end can sense your smile and soften up a little bit. In the wise words of one of my favorite, most influential people of all time, Buddha, “all that we are is the result of what we have thought”.♥