When was the last time you cracked up? Whether you chuckled at your friend’s new haircut or guffawed over ‘Southpark’s’ stupid new movie , laughter is an important part of our health and wellbeing.
Today’s studies show that daily giggles will benefit your health and fitness while making life seem a little less serious. Laughter, naturally has a strong analgesic effect on your whole immune system, even lowering symptomatic ailments such as chronic pain, arthritis, spine lesions, neurological diseases etc. Doctors are of the opinion that laughing brings about the secretion of endorphins into blood, enabling immediate effect on your mood, general life outlook and your bodily system as a whole.
More than that, it is known that laughing is a strong muscle-relaxing method, which also relieves pain and general stress-related symptoms. Howling, as a respiratory gymnastics is considered to be the best method of releasing tension (besides sleep and meditation) and inhibits the secretion of the four main stress hormones.
Our immune system reacts to laughter in an opposite way as it reacts to stress. People who laugh a lot rarely get sick, get weakened by physical and emotional hardship or suffer from mental exhaustion. Experiments have even shown that mothers who laugh a lot have babies with stronger immune systems and healthier cells. Laughter can also be called “inner jogging”, because similar to a morning run, the blood pressure increases and then gradually lowers, till it gets lower than the initial blood pressure. Recently, Japanese scientists discovered that laughing directly influences glucose level in your blood. Greek researchers have also found that 10-15 min/ per day of laughing burns up to 40 calories, which leads to a weight loss of almost 5.0 lb per year.
Besides the physical effects of laughter, there have been many studies on the effects on the brain. Sigmund Freud summarized laughter as the relief theory. He believed that laughter releases tension and “psychic energy” as a coping mechanism for unhappiness and depression.
If you have nothing to laugh about, don’t worry. Laughter Yoga (Hasya Yoga) is a physically oriented technique that uses a blend of playful, empowering and otherwise “tension-releasing” simple laughter exercises. Laughter Yoga is done as a way to improve health, increase wellbeing and promote peace in the world through personal transformation. The Laughter Yoga method was developed by Dr. Madan Kataria, a family physician from Mumbai, India who started the first laughter club in 1995.
He believes that laughter doesn’t need a cause. Starting to laugh out of the blue ( without the need of a joke or a funny mishap) will give you the same physiological effects. Practicing self-induced laughter for 15 minutes per day is said to strengthen your core, feed you with positive affirmations and help you to look younger…longer. Now that’s something to laugh about!
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