Laugh Yourself Healthy!

♥ Laugh yourself to health♥

There is no doubt that laughter is a natural health tonic!  It’s so underestimated and yet so easy to do!

What happens in my body?

When you laugh, your amazing brain releases ‘feel good’ endorphins that improve your mood, and reduce levels of stress hormone cortisol.

 If that’s not already fantastic enough….laughing gives you a mini workout as laughing works your abdominal muscles, facial muscles, diaphragm, respiratory system and your back!  WOW!

BUT …… it doesn’t end there !!!  You use 17 facial muscles when you laugh, which assist in releasing wrinkle forming tension! 

If you could bottle it and buy it, you probably would, but as it’s on tap, available 24/7 and FREE, why the hell do we take laughter for granted ????  Go figure

How does laughter make you healthy?

Studies have shown that laughter can act as a natural painkiller, and Indiana State University discovered that women who laughed, boosted their immune system by a whopping 40%.  Researchers in Michigan found that 20 seconds of laughter could be as good for your lungs as three minutes on a rowing machine!  How spectacular is that!

So, why should we laugh more?

As children we laugh 300 to 400 times a day, however by adulthood studies show this to decline to a very sad 15 times per day only L. 

The thought is that this decline in laughter is due to family, educational and political background encouraging us to become more serious, and therefore suppressing child-like playful laughing.  That’s sinful in our eyes!

Coincidentally Nik & I attended a course recently.  During one element we were told to go back to childhood and have as much fun as we could with a particular exercise.  Easy!  However, when we started to fool around and laugh uncontrollably till our sides ached, we received scornful and disapproving looks from many other attendees and even the person who told us to laugh in the first place!?!

Could this be envy at them being unable to find something to laugh about?  Or was their definition of fun and laughter more monotone and serious than ours?  I don’t suppose we’ll ever know, but what I can tell you is that for the rest of the day we felt ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC !!!!  It worked for us!

A fantastic quote from a laughter therapist we read recently was:-

“There’s a misconception that laughing is something we only do because we are happy. 

In fact, it’s the other way around –we become happier by laughing”.

We love that quote!

The great news is that the body does not know the difference between fake and real laughter, so if you force a laugh, you’ll get the same effect.

So how can I laugh more?

We’d like to share our best laughter therapy and that is:-

1. Watch movies that make you laugh out loud.  We have a whole array of ‘feel good’ movies which include ‘Uncle Buck’, ‘Dumb & Dumber’, ‘Big Fat Greek Wedding’ and ‘Tommy Boy’.
2. We also have an array of personal ‘hysterical moments’ that we talk about often.  You know those moments when you cried with laughter, your sides ached and you almost peed your pants!  A favourite is when Nik fell off a stool in a fast food restaurant in Australia and a time when driving our DeLoreon car from the film “Back to the Future” through Italy after the Cannonball Rally, and we were arrested by the only person on the planet who’d NOT seen the movie and thought our flux capacitor was a bomb!
3. There’s a variety of hysterical clips on YouTube these days too

And finally….

4.   Look in a mirror and with exaggerated smiles and enormous grins say out loud “ ha ha, hee hee” to yourself at least ten times over.   Even       if  you don’t crack up with laughter at yourself, you’ll trick your brain into releasing those feel good hormones. 

  So as we said earlier, it’s FREE, its available 24/7, it’s a great form of exercise, it makes you feel great, it makes you healthier, it relieves pain and reduces wrinkles!

Laugh long, laugh loud and laugh often!