Day 139: National Smile Month

The importance of brushing, good nutrition and regular dental visits is the focus of National Smile Month, the largest independent international dental campaign aimed at consumers of all ages. National Smile Month brings creative messages about oral and overall health to the public and profession, through significant media outreach, a public opinion survey, and the distribution of a National Smile Month Handbook to thousands of dental practices throughout the country, inviting care providers to share campaign messages with their patients. 

National Smile Month is encouraging Americans to make the connection in between a nutritious mouth and a healthful body. Recently executed medical study has demonstrated that bacteria or infections in the mouth impact total wellness. The research has also proven that systemic ailments impact the gums and teeth.

New research is showing that smiling actually has physical health benefits. We actually produce healing loving hormones when we smile at others. We already know it has positive psychological affects on others who see us smile. Do a smile experiment today. When you get on the elevator, go through the checkout line at the grocery or go into a meeting, smile and see what happens. A smile is infectious. When someone greets you with a smile you can’t help it, you smile back. So begin your spiritual practice today, smile!

Operation Smile is a charity organization healing children's smiles, making the world a better place. As a children’s charity, they measure themselves by the joy they see on all of the faces they help. At Operation Smile, they're more than a charity organization. They're a mobilized force of medical professionals and caring hearts who provide safe, effective reconstructive surgery for children born with facial deformities such as cleft lip and cleft palate.

More than 200,000 children are born with a severe cleft condition each year — often unable to eat, speak, socialize or smile. In some places these children are shunned and rejected. And in too many cases, their parents can't afford to give them the surgeries they need to live a normal life.

That's where Operation Smile come in as an international charity providing much needed surgical services. Since 1982, Operation Smile, through the help of dedicated medical volunteers, has provided free surgeries to children around the world. As one of the most prominent children’s charities in the world and with a presence in over 60 countries, they are able to heal children’s smiles and bring hope for a better future.

Thanks to the generosity and spirit of volunteerism shown by their supporters, they heal thousands of children per year and, today, more than 160,000 girls and boys have a new chance at a new life because of their work. With your help, how many lives can they change tomorrow?

Donation $5

To support Operation Smile, please visit: http://www.operationsmile.org/