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The Hidden Power of Smiling - Health

This document discusses Ron Gutman's TED Talk on the hidden power of smiling. It provides exercises for students to analyze the talk, including discussing evidence for smiling's benefits, filling in missing information about how smiling improves health, and identifying simple lifestyle habits to improve overall population health, including smiling more.

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Everton Monteiro
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353 views

The Hidden Power of Smiling - Health

This document discusses Ron Gutman's TED Talk on the hidden power of smiling. It provides exercises for students to analyze the talk, including discussing evidence for smiling's benefits, filling in missing information about how smiling improves health, and identifying simple lifestyle habits to improve overall population health, including smiling more.

Uploaded by

Everton Monteiro
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Health & Social work

Keynote
The hidden power of smiling, Ron Gutman
B1–C2
Discussion
1 Work in groups. Discuss the questions.
1 How much do you smile? Do you think other people think you smile a lot?
2 What (or who) makes you smile? Why?
3 In what professions is someone’s facial expression – including their smile – particularly
important?
4 Is it possible to smile too much? Why? / Why not?

Key words
2 Work in pairs. Follow the instructions.
1 Student A, try to make B smile. Student B, try to suppress your smile. Swap roles.
2 Student B, try smiling in different ways. Student A, try to mimic your partner’s smiles. Swap roles.
3 Work in pairs. Choose the best motivational message(s) for the staffroom of a hospital. Discuss
the reasons for your choice.
a A smile is contagious – pass it along!
b Healthcare is an attitude. Patients can tell a fake smile from a real one.
c Every human culture expresses joy by using the same language – the language of smiling.
d Given a choice between a smiling nurse and one who is frowning, who would you approach?
e Your level of patient care is measured in the span of your smile.
4 Match the words in bold from Exercises 2 and 3 with these definitions.
1 false
____________________
2 spreading quickly from one person to another, like a disease
____________________
3 copy someone’s behaviour, voice or facial expression
____________________
4 length
____________________
5 shows
____________________
6 showing unhappiness, anger or concentration by bringing your eyebrows down and closer
together
____________________
7 stop yourself feeling or showing an emotion
____________________

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Health & Social work
The hidden power of smiling
Comprehension
5 Watch Ron Gutman’s TED Talk, The hidden power of smiling, on TED.com. Are these sentences
true or false?
1 When he was a child, Ron Gutman wanted superpowers. ____
2 A study in California looked at the relationship between people’s smiles in their old college
yearbooks and their future success. ____
3 Baseball players who didn't smile in their pictures lived longer than players who had big, beaming
smiles. ____
4 According to Gutman, we learn to smile from our parents. ____
5 Different cultures use smiles to express different emotions. ____
6 Children smile on average more than adults. ____
7 If you put a pencil in your mouth it is harder to judge whether another person’s smile is real or
fake. ____
8 Smiling shows happiness, but Darwin suggested that smiling can make you happy, too. ______
9 According to Gutman, studies have found that one smile stimulates the brain almost as much as a
bar of chocolate. ____

The big idea


6 Work in groups. Discuss the questions.
1 Ron Gutman claims that smiling is a superpower. In what ways is it a superpower?
2 Look at the following pieces of evidence that Gutman uses to support his point. Which are the
most convincing, in your opinion?
a the research comparing people’s smiles and their later lives
b the information about babies smiling
c the information about smiling in different cultures
d the information about how often people smile
e the research about how smiling affects other people
f the evidence that smiling stimulates the brain
3 Overall, are you convinced by his argument that smiling is so ‘super’?

Language focus – describing health benefits


7 Work in pairs. What information is missing in these facts about smiling? Watch the TED Talk
again from 3.22 to the end and check your answers.
1 It’s very difficult to __________ when you look at someone who is smiling.
2 Seeing other people smile suppresses the control we usually have on our __________ .
3 Charles Darwin said that smiling makes us feel ________ .
4 Smiling stimulates the brain’s reward mechanism even more than __________ or being given
__________ .
5 Smiling can help reduce the level of stress-enhancing __________ , like cortisol, adrenaline and
dopamine.
6 It __________ blood pressure.
7 Smiling can help you and everyone around you live a longer, ________ , ________ life!

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Health & Social work
The hidden power of smiling
8 Complete the text with these words.
benefits help improve keep likely lower stimulates suppresses

Smiling is just one of many surprisingly simple steps we can take to 1__________ our health and
quality of life. For example, a growing number of studies* suggest that having a pet such as a dog
or cat in the home can 2__________ you live a healthier life. Children from homes with dogs are
more than a third less 3__________ to have allergies – it is thought that the presence of dogs and
cats, which bring dirt into the house, 4__________ a stronger immune system and generates
higher levels of some chemicals involved in the immune system in babies and young children.
Another study found that having an animal in the home 5__________anxiety and panic attacks in
elderly patients with Alzheimer's, by helping to reduce the level of stress-enhancing hormones.
Petting a dog can 6__________ blood pressure more than chatting to a friend. And let’s not forget
the health 7__________ of all that dog walking; doing exercise for just thirty minutes per day
could 8__________ you happier for as long as twelve hours.

Speaking
9 Work in groups. Decide which five of these simple lifestyle habits would be most effective in
improving the health of the general population.
 Walk for thirty minutes every day.
 Turn off screens and mobile devices at least an hour before you go to bed.
 Take up yoga or a similar activity.
 Take the stairs (not the lift).
 Smile more.
 Slow down – take five minutes each day to do nothing at all.
 Get a pet.
 Eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day.
 Drink water instead of caffeinated or alcoholic drinks.
 Cut out sugar from your diet.
10 In your groups, choose one of the lifestyle habits and plan a promotional advertising campaign
to promote the idea.

*
See Vormbrock and Grossberg (1988) Cardiovascular effects of human-pet dog interactions Journal of
Behavioural Medicine 11 (5) 509–17.

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