Medically reviewed in January 2022
How long will you live? Just flip through your photo albums or your Facebook pictures for a clue.
Do you see lots of pictures of yourself with a big, toothy, happy-go-lucky smile? That's good. A study suggests that a smile-prone personality may be tightly linked to longevity.
Smile Stats
In the study, researchers looked through the photographs of several hundred professional baseball players who had begun their major league careers before 1950. Then, they compared their snapshots with health records. And it turned out that players who smiled the most in their pictures had mostly outlived their more straight-faced peers. In fact, players with the biggest, brightest grins were only half as likely to have died during any given year of the study period.
What Smiles Say
How smiles—or a lack thereof—may affect health status isn't totally clear. But we know that how you feel on the inside often shows on the outside. And happiness and emotional well-being have hundreds of health benefits.
Take the first steps to growing younger and healthier with the RealAge Test.
