The power of your inner smile..

Are you smiling or frowning to yourself? Smiling is the secret to health and serenity, according to several spiritual traditions. The theory behind inner smile practice is that when we smile like a Buddha, the world beams back.

Mother Teresa (1910-1997) believed “peace begins with a smile”. A sincere smile shines from your soul, making the world a warmer place. As English essayist and poet Joseph Addison (1672-1719) put it, “What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity.” A genuine smile puts us at ease, while a frown creates unease, promoting disease and depression, according to both modern and traditional medicine.

Smiling to others and ourselves is a gift of love. The universal language of a smile speaks straight to the heart, bypassing the intellect and ego. To nurture loving relationships, Ayurveda advises greeting others with a pleasant face, Buddhism encourages friendliness to all (maitri) and Taoism teaches that giving yourself a grin is the best medicine.

A deep inner smile spreads like a relaxing elixir, making us receptive to transforming negative energy into positive. Conversely, a scowl suppresses the immune system by increasing stress and blocking energy. Research by French physiologist Dr Israel Waynbaum indicates that facial muscles used to express emotion trigger specific brain neurotransmitters. Smiling triggers happy healing hormones such as ecstatic endorphins and immune-boosting killer T-cells, whereas frowning triggers the secretion of stress hormones.

Smile therapy lowers the stress hormones cortisol, adrenaline and noradrenaline and produces hormones that stabilise blood pressure, relax muscles, improve respiration, reduce pain, accelerate healing and stabilise mood.1 If you’re feeling down, the stress hormones secreted with a scowl may increase blood pressure, weaken the immune system, increase susceptibility to infections and exacerbate depression and anxiety.

But what if you don’t feel like smiling? Can you fake it till you make it? Though a heartfelt smile has a deeper effect, even a surface smile tricks the brain into releasing happy hormones, according to facial biofeedback research.2 And the more you smile, the more you want to smile, concluded a study where participants were either prevented from smiling or encouraged to smile by holding a pencil in their mouth (those who held the pencil in their teeth and were able to smile rated cartoons as funnier than those who held the pencil in their lips and couldn’t smile).3 This is because each time you smile, you reinforce happy neural pathways that fire more spontaneously with each subsequent use. Self-love smiling circuits then release healing nectar, while self-hate messages release toxins that breed disease, according to Taoism.

The smile trial

How often do you smile? Try the smile trial for a minute. Relax your face and let a subtle Mona Lisa smile spread from your eyes to your lips. Now frown and sense the emotional and energetic shift. Feel the difference? Considering it takes only 26 muscles to smile and 62 muscles to frown, why wear the strain of a scowl? As motivational speaker Les Giblin says, “If you're not using your smile, you're like a man with a million dollars in the bank and no check book.”

Smiling seems to have a cultural element. The Japanese rate low on the smile-o-meter, so they’re being encouraged to smile to increase profits. “Japanese are truly hopeless at smiling. That's caused the loss of many business opportunities,” says Makoto Tonami, president of Mac Corp, an operator of beauty salons offering 30-minute smile sessions using exercises and a machine to lift the mouth muscles and spirits.

Britain also has sorry smile statistics, with research revealing that if you smile at 100 people, 70 will smile back in Bristol, 68 in Glasgow, 18 in London and only four in Edinburgh.4 Writing this article while on retreat in Thailand, I notice how people there go out of their way to smile at others, while in many other places I’ve found people often avert the gaze of others, as if avoiding a smile ambush.

It’s easy to share a smile, since it’s the second most contagious facial expression after yawning. A smiling face is always beautiful and an endearing accessory, while an ugly expression will overshadow meticulous attention to grooming and dress every time. But smiles do more than increase your face value: British researchers found that receiving a smile could give more pleasure than sex or eating chocolate. It also generated much higher levels of stimulation to the brain and heart than being given money or having a cigarette did.

Never underestimate the power of a smile. Use yours and you’ll find it helps to disperse sadness and dissolve stress. When dressing in the morning, remember author Jim Beggs’ advice: “Before you put on a frown, make absolutely sure there are no smiles available.”

Importance of Idioms!!!

The use of idioms has a great influence in the teaching and learning process of a foreign
language, because it could be one of the ways to give students better conditions to improve
communicative skill in the daily context.
Moreover, the researcher expresses that the common use of idioms in daily speech for
English speakers has brought a necessity in the teaching field to implement the use of this
tool in and outside the classroom in order to help students be competitive, increase their
vocabulary and the informal way to speak in English.

English is a language particularly rich in idioms - those modes of expression peculiar to a
language (or dialect) which frequently defy logical and grammatical rules. Without idioms
English would lose much of its variety and humor both in speech and writing. The background
and etymological origins of most idioms is at best obscure. This is the reason why
a study of differences between the idioms of American and British English is somewhat difficult.
But it also makes the cases, where background, etymology and history are known, even more
interesting. Some idioms of the "worldwide English" have first been seen in the works of writers
like Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott, Lewis Carroll or even in the paperbacks of contemporary
novelists. An example of Shakespearian quotation can be found in the following sentence:"As a
social worker, you certainly see the seamy side of life." Biblical references are also the source of
many idioms. Sports terms, technical terms, legal terms, military slang and even nautical expressions
have found their way to the everyday use of English language. 

Some examples of Idioms are:

ace: make an "A" on a test, homework assignment, project, etc.

"Somebody said you aced the test, Dave. That's great!"

all right (1): expression of reluctant agreement.

A: "Come to the party with me. Please!"
B: "Oh, all right. I don't want to, but I will."

all right (2): fair; not particularly good.

A: "How's your chemistry class?"
B: "It's all right, I guess, but it's not the best class I've ever had."

all right (3): unharmed; in satisfactory condition.

A: "You don't look normal. Are you all right?"
B: "Yes, but I have a headache."

and then some: and much more besides.

A: "I'd guess your new computer cost about $2,000. "
B: "It cost that much and then some because I also bought extra RAM and VRAM."

antsy: restless; impatient and tired of waiting.

"I hope Katy calls soon. Just sitting around and waiting is making me antsy."

as easy as pie: very easy.

"I thought you said this was a difficult problem. It isn't. In fact, it's as easy as pie."

at the eleventh hour: at the last minute; almost too late.

"Yes, I got the work done in time. I finished it at the eleventh hour, but I wasn't late.

Idioms for everyday use.

Idioms are sayings that reflect accumulated human experiences and are built on frequently occurring situations, that demonstrate human behavior, social traits, certain habits or tradition in a country.They almost represent life lessons and are a heritage of those accumulated events that make up the conscious of a nation or humankind in general.
Every country or nation has got their own idioms that are specific to their own culture, while many idioms have synonyms in several countries,what refers to the equal shared human nature in many cultures. Learning the specific idioms related to a certain culture helps you learn more about the history, customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of it.


One of the keys to speaking like a native is the ability to use and understand casual expressions, or idioms. American English is full of idioms. You won’t learn these expressions in a standard textbook. But you will hear them all the time in everyday conversations. You’ll also meet them in books, newspapers, magazines, TV shows, and on the Internet. Idioms add color to the language. Master idioms and your speech will be less awkward, less foreign. You’ll also understand more of what you read and hear. In this blog you will find different articles in where kids can learn and use idioms by themes, the idea is that as soon that they learn more vocabulary they can do practices and read paragraphs applying the idioms that kids are learning.
Some of the themes are going to be:

• Idioms from colors.
• Idioms from food.
• Idioms from numbers.
• Idioms from parts of the body.
• Idioms from people.
• Idioms from animals.
• Idioms from  Geography.

Importance of English...

Language is the source of communication. Its the way through which we share our ideas and thoughts with others. There are uncountable languages in this world. Because every country has their own national language, then they have different local languages spoken and understood by their people in different regions.

Let's talk about English. It is the language of England and has International Standard. Many people think English as American Language but it is not true. In fact, when Columbus discovered America, he saw the country in the Stone Age with high illiteracy rate. Those were the European and English people who brought education and knowledge even technology towards America.

There are several factors that make us to learn English Language to go through in the current time. First of all, as I already mention, it has International Standard, that’s why everyone needs to learn English in order to get in touch on International Level.

If we see Educational field, we will find much of the syllabus is written in English. Children are taught and encouraged to learn English on starting levels. And accordingly, as they promote to the next levels they study almost all the subjects in English.

We see the Internet and finds more than 90% of websites written and created in English. And even when you see some sites in other languages, they also give you the option to translate in English. All the research and studies you find will be written and typed in English. All the information regarding each and everything contains English Language.

There is another factor that make English very important in this world is it is the easiest language of the world to learn. Many people think that it is very difficult and confusing. But I suggest them to start and learn only for a week and they will feel easy with English.

With good understanding and communication in English, we can travel around the globe. We get assistance and help in English in every part of world. You can test it by on line travel.

Better you visit some offices, companies, governmental organizations, and other departments, and you will see the importance of English as they hire the professional staff after getting know that whether the people they are hiring are good at English or not. This is the company's will that their staff is not even well educated but also good English speaker, writer and Reader.

Those who are still unaware about the importance of English. They should start learning English as a time will come when everything would be understood, spoken and written in English. Better watch some media and get the scope of English

Idioms for Everyday Use

Idioms are sayings that reflect accumulated human experiences and are built on frequently occurring situations, that demonstrate human behavior, social traits, certain habits or tradition in a country.They almost represent life lessons and are a heritage of those accumulated events that make up the conscious of a nation or humankind in general.
Every country or nation has got their own idioms that are specific to their own culture, while many idioms have synonyms in several countries,what refers to the equal shared human nature in many cultures. Learning the specific idioms related to a certain culture helps you learn more about the history, customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of it.
One of the keys to speaking like a native is the ability to use andunderstand casual expressions, or idioms. American English is full of idioms. You won’t learn these expressions in a standard textbook. But you will hear them all the time in everyday conversations. You’ll also meet them in books, newspapers, magazines, TV shows, and on the Internet. Idioms add color to the language. Master idioms and your speech will be less awkward, less foreign. You’ll also understand more of what you read and hear. In this blog you will find different articles in where teachers will have some ideas at the same time that kids will learn more vocabulary by the use of stories and practices. In this blog  idioms are going to be classify by:

• Colors.
• Food.
• Numbers.
• Parts of the body.
• People.
• Animals.
• Geography.
• Recreation.
• Medicine.
• Plants.
• Clothes.
• Time.
• Weather.

Now teachers you can introduce the topic by the use of this video. Enjoy the idioms´ world.

By: M.Ed Andrea Villegas