Whether you're laughing at a sitcom on TV , joking with friends and family or giggling at a cartoon, laughing is a great form of stress relief.
Data is mounting about the benefits laughter can have for our health.
It appears that laughter, has similar psychological effects on the body as doing exercise, by helping to stimulate circulation, improve cognition and increase natural cell activity. Through humour, a person can decrease the effects of stress and excess production of cortisol (stress hormone), which otherwise would lead to impairment in learning, memory and emotions.
Laughter's Effects on the Body
In the last few decades, researchers have studied laughter's effects on the body with interesting findings.
Short-term benefits of laughter
· Activates and relieves your stress response. A good laugh fires up and then cools down your stress response, and it can increase and then decrease your heart rate and blood pressure, resulting in a relaxed feeling.
· Soothes tension. Laughter can also stimulate circulation and aid muscle relaxation, both of which can help reduce some of the physical symptoms of stress.
Long-term effects
· Improves your immune system. Negative thoughts manifest into chemical reactions that can affect your body by bringing more stress into your system and decreasing your immunity. By contrast, positive thoughts can actually release neuropeptides that help fight stress and potentially more-serious illnesses.
· Relieves pain. Laughter may ease pain by causing the body to produce its own natural painkillers.
· Increases personal satisfaction. Laughter can also make it easier to cope with difficult situations. It also helps you connect with other people.
· Improves your mood. Many people experience depression, sometimes due to chronic illnesses. Laughter can help lessen your depression and anxiety and may make you feel happier.
· Blood sugar levels. One study of 19 people with diabetes looked at the effects of laughter on blood sugar levels. After eating, the group attended a tedious lecture. On the next day, the group ate the same meal and then watched a comedy. After the comedy, the group had lower blood sugar levels than they did after the lecture.
· Blood flow. Researchers at the University of Maryland studied the effects on blood vessels when people were shown either comedies or dramas. After the screening, the blood vessels of the group who watched the comedy behaved normally -- expanding and contracting easily. But the blood vessels in people who watched the drama tended to tense up, restricting blood flow.
· Relaxation and sleep. One of the most convincing health benefits he's seen from laughter is its ability to dull pain. Numerous studies of people in pain or discomfort have found that when they laugh, they report that their pain doesn't bother them as much.The focus on the benefits of laughter on pain really began with Norman Cousin's memoir, Anatomy of an Illness. Cousins, who was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, a painful spine condition, found that a diet of comedies, like Marx Brothers films and episodes of Candid Camera, helped him feel better. He said that ten minutes of laughter allowed him two hours of pain-free sleep.
It must be noted that, despite these interesting findings, one of the biggest problems with laughter research is that it's very difficult to determine cause and effect. For instance, a study might show that people who laugh more are less likely to be sick. This maybe because people who are healthy have more to laugh about. In a group of people with the same disease, people who laugh more may show to have more energy. But that could be because the people who laugh more have a personality that allows them to cope better.
It is however indisputable that laughter, is part of a larger picture that reminds us about the importance of being social, take time to switch off and cultivate positive thinking as the benefits from laughter might be coming more from taking time off and being close with friends and family than from the act of laughing itself.
As research has shown that we're thirty times more likely to laugh when we're with other people than when we're alone, it follows that connecting with others is key to being healthy.

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