The right slogan when we hear it or read it can be inspiring. And I hope you will find the one I offered last week to be so: "Smile and the world smiles with you."

There are lots of ways to express this thought and you no doubt have heard many of them. When someone looks at you and says, "say cheese," we automatically know they are not talking about dairy products. They just might be asking you to "turn that frown upside down" and smile for the camera. This simple act can even lead to a pathway to better health that could have a profound impact on one's physical and emotional well-being if you wear a smile regularly. According to health experts, even a forced smile can produce this effect. As pointed out in a verywellmind.com report, wearing a smile can also serve as a natural painkiller and can increase the production of natural pain-relieving chemicals such as endorphins and serotonin. This not only helps reduce the perception of pain but can also enhance your tolerance for discomfort, hence the saying "grin and bear it."

What I'm suggesting is that a simple slogan when embraced can become a motto that drives and focuses us. I submit the following examples for your consideration.

— Posture perfect!

Many a mother out there has taken on the practice of advising their children to stand up straight, with shoulders back. Hard to say that this is a message that has sunk in as lots of folks seem to not take much heed to such advice.

"Whether you're standing, sitting at your desk or looking down at your smartphone, posture plays a big role in your health," writes U.S News' Paul Wynn in a recent U.S. News Health Report. "Good posture leads to numerous benefits, everything from preventing joint pain and muscle fatigue to fewer injuries and degenerative arthritis." A person is demonstrating good posture when they are "standing straight with shoulders back, and the head is directly over the middle of the pelvis. ... Good posture is all about balance."

Says Dr. Miho Tanaka, director of the Women's Sports Medicine program at Massachusetts General Hospital and associate professor of orthopedic surgery at Harvard Medical School, "with good posture, movements of the body are more efficient, which means less strain is placed on the joints or surrounding muscles and tendons."

There are essentially two main types of posture. What is called "dynamic posture," which is the body's position while walking, running, bending over or lifting something up. The other is called "static posture," the position and alignment of the body in a stationary position such as sitting, standing or sleeping.

A major example of poor postures is what orthopedic specialists refer to as the "forward-head position." Over time, this position can tend to cause a straightening of "the cervical curve, which in turn can cause pain, headache, premature disc degeneration and arthritis. ... Most people fall into the trap of forward-head position when texting, working on a laptop or doing other kinds of taskwork," says Wynn.

Adds Dr. Robert Cho, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon at Shriner Children's Southern California in Pasadena, good posture is easier for children, adolescents and adults to achieve. But as people age and do not practice good posture, "it is common for spinal discs — the soft cushion layered in between each vertebrae — to wear out and for arthritis to affect the joints of the spine."

— Mind over matter.

This saying is generally associated with the concept that your mind and thoughts can be powerful enough to overcome any situation or obstacles that may arise. Even bending one's will to make it happen. But, according to Dr. Darlene A. Mayo, a board-certified neurosurgeon & neuroscientist specializing in helping people focus on how to maximize the functions of their brain, it also relates to "an emerging area of rehabilitative medicine involving teaching a person how to produce more robust brain pathways to signal healing."

"Scientific evidence proves your brain actually has pathways related to any medical condition that you have," writes Mayo in a U.S. News Health report. "And, before you see healing from that medical condition, those brain pathways must change. ... Close your eyes and imagine what you look like, feel like and what you will be able to do once you are healed," she suggests. "This will create electrical signals in the mirror neuron network of your brain that will automatically begin the process of rewiring your brain from pathways of sickness and disease to pathways of health and wholeness. The more often you do this, the faster your brain pathways will change, and the more you will accelerate your healing," she says.

This is not unlike the idea of the power of positive thinking. Where you think positively, and believe that somehow, things will work out.

— "Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man (or woman) healthy, wealthy, and wise."

So said Benjamin Franklin way back when.

We should all be abundantly aware by now that getting quality sleep is an important component of overall health. Oddly, the exact reasons humans need to sleep remain unknown to modern science. According to the Sleep Foundation's Jay Summer, "brain plasticity theory, a major theory on why humans sleep, (speculates) that sleep is necessary so the brain can grow, reorganize, restructure, and make new neural connections."

"While sleeping, the body performs a number of repairing and maintaining processes that affect nearly every part of the body," says Summer. "As a result, a good night's sleep, or a lack of sleep, can impact the body both mentally and physically."

While most adults should get between seven and nine hours of sleep each night, as I recently reported, only 1 in 3 get that amount, and people who get inadequate sleep are at higher risk of experiencing mental distress and negatively impacting their mood, their health and their ability to think clearly.

— "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

This old English proverb I think speaks for itself.

Follow Chuck Norris through his official social media sites, on Twitter @chucknorris and Facebook's "Official Chuck Norris Page." He blogs at http://chucknorrisnews.blogspot.com. To find out more about Chuck Norris and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Jared Rice at Unsplash