A smile not only makes your face look better, it helps to condition your mind. We all know about conditioning our body. We have heard repeatedly that staying fit requires 30 minutes of activity at least three times a week. But what do we know about conditioning our minds? What does a well-conditioned mind feel like? Perhaps happiness is the result of a well-conditioned mind.

What is the relationship between smiling and happiness? We tend to assume that smiling people are happy people and there is some basis for that assumption. The mind cannot tell the difference between a happy thought that makes you smile and smiling as a choice. When you choose to smile your mind thinks you have a reason for smiling and releases endorphins or feel good chemicals.

Try it and see. Take a deep breath and put a smile on your face. You will feel better, if only a little. We have many reasons to want happiness—happy people have fewer heart attacks, fewer infections, lower blood pressure and a healthier immune system. Beside it just feels good to be happy.

The drawback is that the more you try to chase after or create happiness, the more elusive it becomes. Part of the problem may be that we associate happiness with pleasure. We think doing more of what is pleasurable will make us happy. For example, I love chocolate and we went to a chocolate buffet once. The first chocolate dessert was scrumptious, the second one was tasty and the third was not too bad, but by the fourth I was searching for anything that was not chocolate. The more chocolate I ate the less pleasurable eating chocolate became.

You may have noticed that your enjoyment of a particular song can diminish in direct proportion to the increased number of times that you hear it. We get tired of things and our pleasure tends to decrease with repetition. It is the ad nauseam affect.

So if doing more of what we enjoy is not the way to find happiness, then what is?

Although people tend to have a set point for their general level of happiness, researchers have recently discovered that we enjoy much more brain plasticity than previously thought. It is possible to grow, change and develop our qualities and characteristics even as an adult. This requires becoming aware of our thoughts and behaviors and choosing to discipline our inner self.

We will spend hours looking after our body, cleaning it, grooming it, exercising, shopping for clothes, getting hair and nails done, applying make-up. We also repeatedly spend time cleaning, organizing and beautifying our home and surroundings. While this is important and has an impact on our quality of life, if we don’t take care of our mind we may end up too miserable to enjoy what we have or who we are.

Most of us spend surprisingly little time taking care of our mind. Our greatest growth occurs when we choose to pay attention to, clean, organize and beautify our inner world. We get to know and accept ourself. We honor our own feelings, thoughts and preferences. We pay attention to the kinds of things that we put into our mind and to the quality of the thoughts that we have.

When we practicing self-discipline, we can learn to control our thoughts and emotions. We encourage high quality or positive emotions and thoughts and we learn from and release negative emotions and thoughts. This inner conditioning will bring us that peace within, that will be like a deep ocean. Where the ocean is deep, even if there is a storm on the surface, the depths of the sea are never troubled. There is a stillness and peace there that is unmovable. There is a smile and there is happiness.

True happiness is an inside out job. We can choose to enjoy the pleasures in life. We can also grow to the point that we can choose to hang on to our inner happiness even in the face of life’s storms and troubles. Happiness comes in knowing that even if things are uncomfortable or going wrong we can be okay and happy with who we are.