Laughter has many benefits. 
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The Stress Management and Health Benefits of Laughter
The Laughing Cure
By Elizabeth Scott, M.S., About.com
Updated: April 22, 2008
"Laughter has many benefits."
Laughter is good for your soul- -and your body!
Research has shown health benefits of laughter ranging from strengthening the immune system to reducing food cravings to increasing one's threshold for pain. There's even an emerging therapeutic field known as humor therapy to help people heal more quickly, among other things. Humor also has several important stress relieving benefits.
Stress Management Benefits of Laughter:
* Hormones: Laughter reduces the level of stress hormones like cortisol, epinephrine (adrenaline), dopamine and growth hormone. It also increases the level of health-enhancing hormones like endorphins, and neurotransmitters. Laughter increases the number of antibody-producing cells and enhances the effectiveness of T cells. All this means a stronger immune system, as well as fewer physical effects of stress.
* Physical Release: Have you ever felt like you "have to laugh or I'll cry"? Have you experienced the cleansed feeling after a good laugh? Laughter provides a physical and emotional release.
* Internal Workout: A good belly laugh exercises the diaphragm, contracts the abs and even works out the shoulders, leaving muscles more relaxed afterward. It even provides a good workout for the heart.
* Distraction: Laughter brings the focus away from anger, guilt, stress and negative emotions in a more beneficial way than other mere distractions.
* Perspective: Studies show that our response to stressful events can be altered by whether we view something as a 'threat' or a 'challenge'. Humor can give us a more lighthearted perspective and help us view events as 'challenges', thereby making them less threatening and more positive.
* Social Benefits of Laughter: Laughter connects us with others. Also, laughter is contagious, so if you bring more laughter into your life, you can most likely help others around you to laugh more, and realize these benefits as well. By elevating the mood of those around you, you can reduce their stress levels, and perhaps improve the quality of social interaction you experience with them, reducing your stress level even more!
How To Use Laughter:
Laughter is one of my all-time favorite stress management strategies because it's free, convenient, and beneficial in so many ways. You can get more laughter in your life with the following strategies:
* T.V. and Movies: There's no shortage of laughter opportunities from the entertainment, both at the theater and in the aisles of the video stores, as well as at home with T.V. comedies. While wasting your time watching something marginally funny may actually frustrate you, watching truly hilarious movies and shows is an easy way to get laughter into your life whenever you need it.
* Laugh With Friends: Going to a movie or comedy club with friends is a great way to get more laughter in your life. The contagious effects of laughter may mean you'll laugh more than you otherwise would have during the show, plus you'll have jokes to reference at later times. Having friends over for a party or game night is also a great setup for laughter and other good feelings.
* Find Humor In Your Life: Instead of complaining about life's frustrations, try to laugh about them. If something is so frustrating or depressing it's ridiculous, realize that you could 'look back on it and laugh.' Think of how it will sound as a story you could tell to your friends, and then see if you can laugh about it now. With this attitude, you may also find yourself being more lighthearted and silly, giving yourself and those around you more to laugh about. Approach life in a more mirthful way and you'll find you're less stressed about negative events, and you'll achieve the health benefits of laughter. (See this article on maintaining a sense of humor.
* 'Fake It Until You Make It': Just as studies show the positive effects of smiling occur whether the smile is fake or real, faked laughter also provides the benefits mentioned above. So smile more, and fake laughter; you'll still achieve positive effects, and the fake merriment may lead to real smiles and laughter.
* More on Having Fun: See these additional suggestions on laughing more and having fun in your life.
Sources:
Bennett MP, Lengacher C. Humor and Laughter May Influence Health: III. Laughter and Health Outcomes. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, March 2008.
Bennett MP, Zeller JM, Rosenberg L, McCann J. The Effect of Mirthful Laughter on Stress and Natural Killer Cell Activity.. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, March-April 2003.
Berk LS, Felten DL, Tan SA, Bittman BB, Westengard J. Modulation of Neuroimmune Parameters During the Eustress of Humor-Associated Mirthful Laughter.. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, March 2001.
Skinner N, Brewer N. The Dynamics of Threat and Challenge Appraisals Prior to Stressful Achievement Events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, September 2002.
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- Re: Quotes about laughter mo123
15 y
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This is a reply to # 1,384,421I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose. ~Woody Allen
At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities. ~Jean Houston
Even if there is nothing to laugh about, laugh on credit. ~Author Unknown
Mirth is God's medicine. Everybody ought to bathe in it. ~Henry Ward Beecher
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis. ~Jack Handey, "Deep Thoughts," Saturday Night Live
The most wasted of all days is one without laughter. ~e.e. cummings
Laughter is an instant vacation. ~Milton Berle
What monstrous absurdities and paradoxes have resisted whole batteries of serious arguments, and then crumbled swiftly into dust before the ringing death-knell of a laugh! ~Agnes Repplier
So many tangles in life are ultimately hopeless that we have no appropriate sword other than laughter. ~Gordon W. Allport
Laughter is the shortest distance between two people. ~Victor Borge
What soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul. ~Yiddish Proverb
When people are laughing, they're generally not killing each other. ~Alan Alda
Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward. ~Kurt Vonnegut
A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor's book. ~Irish Proverb
Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on. ~Bob Newhart
A hearty laugh gives one a dry cleaning, while a good cry is a wet wash. ~Puzant Kevork Thomajan
There can never be enough said of the virtues, dangers, the power of a shared laugh. ~Françoise Sagan
I've always thought that a big laugh is a really loud noise from the soul saying, "Ain't that the truth." ~Quincy Jones
Laughter is the corrective force which prevents us from becoming cranks. ~Henri Bergson
Dogs laugh, but they laugh with their tails. What puts man in a higher state of evolution is that he has got his laugh on the right end. ~Max Eastman
A man isn't poor if he can still laugh. ~Raymond Hitchcock
Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything. ~Kurt Vonnegut
Remember, men need laughter sometimes more than food. ~Anna Fellows Johnston
No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad. ~Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, Book I, chapter 4
You can't deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants. ~Stephen King, Hearts in Atlantis
With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die. ~Abraham Lincoln
Whoever said "laughter is the best medicine" never had gonorrhea. ~Kat Likkel and John Hoberg, My Name Is Earl, "Robbed a Stoner Blind," original airdate 16 November 2006
A good, real, unrestrained, hearty laugh is a sort of glorified internal massage, performed rapidly and automatically. It manipulates and revitalizes corners and unexplored crannies of the system that are unresponsive to most other exercise methods. ~Author unknown, from an editorial in New York Tribune, quoted in Quotations for Special Occasions by Maud van Buren
Man, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing. ~Ken Kesey
It was not a laugh but merely a loud smile. ~Author Unknown
Seven days without laughter makes one weak. ~Mort Walker
A laugh is a smile that bursts. ~Mary H. Waldrip
Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face. ~Victor Hugo
[L]aughter on one's lips is a sign that the person down deep has a pretty good grasp of life. ~Hugh Sidey
Laughter is the sensation of feeling good all over and showing it principally in one place. ~Josh Billings
Carry laughter with you wherever you go. ~Hugh Sidey
Laughter is a tranquilizer with no side effects. ~Arnold Glasow
Laughter is an orgasm triggered by the intercourse of sense and nonsense. ~Author Unknown
We do have a zeal for laughter in most situations, give or take a dentist. ~Joseph Heller
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- Why man has invented laughter mo123
15 y
1,579
This is a reply to # 1,384,705Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter. ~Friedrich Nietzsche
So many are alone and suffering with the illness of Alzheimers never wanting to go out as I was. I am different now I am venturing out of the world and thinking of tomorrow. It took me a long time and a long journey but as I heal my heart and my soul, I can venture on. The journey is very difficult and a long one but it is possible.
What I find the most sad is those who have many around them and still they are so incredibly lonely. Like a room filled with people but no one you can talk or feel happy with. Almost like you are already dead. I hear this over and over, "Sara, I am so lonely." Why, when they have 20 people in the family. Lonliness the worse word in the dictionary.
I am hoping these words of laughter has cheered you up. I am hoping that we can bring a few moments of cheer in your life.
From the words of the smartest person I ever knew once told me. "Your life is so terrible with me, I wanted to give you ten minutes of happiness." Mo, my late husband.
So if I could give you ten minutes of happiness tonight, indeed I was successful.
SARA
- Why man has invented laughter mo123
15 y
1,579
- Re: Quotes about laughter mo123
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