Laugh for your Health

The Power of Laughter

“Scientists have calculated that only half a minute of joyful laughter is worth 45 minutes of static rest,” reports the Polish weekly Przyjaciółka. “A spontaneous burst of laughter is comparable to three minutes of aerobic exercise, whereas ten warm smiles equal ten minutes of intensive rowing.” Other benefits of laughing include a threefold increase in the amount of air drawn into the lungs as well as improved circulation, digestion, metabolism, brain function, and elimination of harmful substances. The magazine suggests that to help put yourself in the right mood, you should smile at yourself, your mate, and your children first thing in the morning. “Learn to laugh at yourself,” it adds. “Try to find the good side of things even in difficult circumstances

Laughter—Still the Best Medicine!

“A dose of comedy taken daily for four weeks has now been found to reduce significantly the symptoms of depression,” reports The Independent of London. “Some of the patients who were told to spend 30 minutes a day listening to therapeutic tapes of comedians were cured, while others found that the severity of their symptoms had been halved.” More than 100 studies in the United States have indicated that laughter induced by humor can be beneficial. Not only people who are depressed but also those who had allergies, high blood pressure, weakened immune systems, and even cancer and rheumatoid arthritis have responded. Laughter has long been known to promote well-being, but just how is not clearly understood. Psychotherapist Dr. Ed Dunkleblau offers some cautionary advice though: Avoid abusive and sarcastic humor, and be careful about being too funny. Otherwise, the patient may feel that his problem is not being taken seriously.

For Better Health—Laugh!

Good-natured laughter does more than brighten a person’s day. According to some Japanese doctors, it also normalizes imbalances in the endocrine, nervous, and immune systems, stabilizes heartbeat and breathing, and can bring temporary relief to sufferers of rheumatism. Laughter stimulates sympathetic nerves, thereby boosting the blood flow to muscles and increasing brain activity. When we laugh heartily, we also exercise our muscles. In a test cited in the IHT Asahi Shimbun newspaper, one laughing subject’s abdominal muscles “showed the same level of exertion as required by sit-ups.” Osaka psychiatrist Michio Tanaka praised the positive influence of laughter. AcLaugh, and Live Longer?

It has long been believed that laughter is good medicine.

Ten years ago scientists at the State University of New York decided to find out why it is. They recently revealed their discovery that laughter helps trigger the release of powerful hormones that energize a person’s immune system. One group of hormones, called cytokines, has been found to promote the activity of white blood cells, which are needed to ward off viral and bacterial infections and which destroy potential cancer cells. These are just “one of the substances whose levels are increased by laughter,” says The Sunday Times of London. The link between laughter and cytokines has led some researchers to refer to them as happy hormones. Thus, the paper calls laughter “a recipe for a long life.”

cording to Tanaka, “it’s like an effective drug with no side effects.”