In 2020, we’re exploring our energy. How it affects us physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. We’ve hooked up with a series of experts who will set an experiment every month to help us discover a new way of managing our energy.
As lockdown starts to ease and we’re finding ourselves venturing back to the places we went before Covid hit, it’s important we remember that whilst social distancing is there to put physical distance between us, we still need to connect with other humans emotionally. We’re designed to be social animals and if we forget to connect with other humans, it can have a massive impact on our health and happiness, leading us to some dark places. Research shows that lacking social connections is as bad for our health us as smoking 15 cigarettes a day! In the UK alone there are 9 million people who say they are lonely, right now!
By simply connecting with another human being and smiling together, we throw a little feel-good party in our brains. The act of smiling releases serotonin which serves as an anti-depressant, improving both how we feel and how healthy we are – double win.
For this month’s Elvis Energy Experiment, we’re partnering with the brilliant Dr Mark Goulston on his ‘What Made You Smile Today?’ Challenge. The challenge is based around asking a simple question of the people we meet, every day for a week. 5 simple words, that will have a profound impact on your day and theirs.
It works like this…
Once a day for a week, when you’re being served by someone wearing a name tag (supermarket, café etc.), after they’ve served you, do this…
1. Look them in the eye and introduce yourself to them.
2. Thank them for serving you and tell them you have a question for them.
3. Ask them “What made you smile today?”
By taking the time to stop and connect with someone, bringing them back to a time that made them smile, you’re giving them another hit of the chemicals in their brain that made them feel good when it first happened. And in return you’ll find that spending being selfless and putting your focus onto someone else and their happiness, actually makes you feel happier and better about yourself too… And if all that hasn’t convinced you to give this experiment a go, how about the fact that smiling is also proven to make us more attractive to other people…
So, get out there, connect with someone else and bring a smile to their face and yours. To find out more about Dr Mark Goulston and this months challenge watch his TedTalk on the challenge below...
Follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter where we’ll be sharing the impact this challenge is having for us and the connections it creates with the people we meet...
Big Love
The Upping Your Elvis Team
Xxx
Photo by Jacqueline Munguía on Unsplash
