A_Healthy_Hardy-Har_Har_To

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It's no secret that laughter lifts your spirits, but apparently it improves
your body's physical state as well. There is evidence that laughter
relaxes tense muscles, reduces production of stress-causing
hormones, lowers blood pressure, and helps increase oxygen
absorption in the blood. It also helps you burn calories since it's
possible to move 400 muscles of the body when laughing. Some
researchers estimate that laughing 100 times offers an aerobic workout
equivalent to 10 minutes on a rowing machine or 15 minutes on an
exercise bike

Laughter impacts on our hormonal levels, in response to laughter.
It has been shown to shut down the "stress" hormones like
cortisol, dopamine, adrenaline, and growth hormone, keeping
them at lower healthier levels.

Laughter is remarkably selective in what it shuts down. In the
1992 Journal of the American Medical Association #267,
Dr. W. Fry notes that the endorphin protein, a natural morphine-
like substance in our bodies, seems to remain constant in
laughter, even as the stress hormones are being shut down.

Laughter improves alertness, memory, learning, & creativity by
releasing catecholamines into our body.

Virtually all of us learn to laugh at four months of age, something
which requires the action of fifteen facial muscles and changes
in breathing. When we laugh, at first the heart rate increases as
does our rate of breathing. After our laughter ceases, there is a
period of relaxation, easing muscle tension and useful in breaking
the muscle spasm in some neuralgias and rheumatism.

Research indicates that laughter is like a massaging of all the
organs within the body. Cumulative laughter throughout the day
may be significantly greater than that of an average marathon.

Physiologically, laughter is an aerobic experience, an internal
stationary jogging!

Scientific research has proven the positive benefits of a
prescription for laughter. Cardiologists at the University of
Maryland Medical Center said laughter might help prevent heart
disease. Their findings, presented in 2000 at the American Heart
Association's seventy-third scientific meeting, showed that
laughing can actually reduce the risk of heart attack by curbing
unwanted stress, which can destroy the protective lining of blood
vessels. The researchers surveyed people with and without heart
disease to gauge their reactions to certain humorous and non-
humorous situations. They discovered that people with heart
disease were 40 percent less likely to laugh in a variety of
situations.

Laughter has been effectively used as pain therapy.

Laughter also has a measurable impact on reducing high blood
pressure.

laughter significantly increased levels of salivary immunoglobin A,
a vital immune system protein which protects us against
respiratory illnesses.