Laugh to cheer up your health and creativity
Have you had your daily dose of laughter today? A great LOL can turn a lousy stressful day into a perfect happy day. If you haven’t been laughing by 9:00 am on any given day, then your day is off to a bad start. Everyone is familiar with the old cliché “Laughter is the best medicine”. Real life experiences tell us that this cliché is absolutely correct. According to medical experts, we only need 15 laughs a day to keep the doctor away.
Laughter comes in many forms; it could be a subtle smile to an overflowing laugh. You don’t have the laugh and the meat drop, or laugh until you cry to be laughing enough. A simple smile is a step in the right direction. Humor can be a powerful ally in maintaining well-being and preventing slip-ups. Several investigations showed that laughter releases chemicals in the brain, namely beta-endorphins and enkephalins, which are natural pain relievers. These natural pain relievers are believed to be 100 times more powerful than any morphine or opium-based medication normally taken as a pain reliever.
Psychologist Alice M. Isen and her colleagues conducted a study of a group of college students to determine how laughter affects creativity. Given a box of matches, a box of thumbtacks, and a candle, college students were asked how they would place the candle on a corkboard so that when the candle is lit, the wax does not drip onto the corkboard. Before attempting to solve the problem, a group of students watched a television blooper comedy movie that would elicit laughs. The other group of students watched Area Under a Curve, a math movie. The researchers found that 75% of the students who were put in a happy condition got the problem right, while only 20% of the students who watched the math movie got it right. Watch comedy shows like Hannah Montana or JONAS! can induce a good amount of laughter to complete your daily dose of laughter.
Additionally, laughter benefits the entire cardiovascular system through dilation of blood vessels and increased blood flow throughout the body. When you laugh, you swallow a large amount of air, which creates a rich, highly oxygenated flow of blood. When you laugh, your blood pressure and heart rate rise as much as you exercise, but after the laughter subsides, both your blood pressure and heart rate return to lower levels than they started with. As a result, you feel refreshed after a healthy dose of laughter. It is interesting that even the Bible agrees on the power of laughter. In Proverbs 17:22 it says that “A merry heart is good medicine, but a gloomy spirit dries up the bones.”
Love yourself and laugh today!