‘LAUGHERCISE’: More evidence for the Health Benefits of Laughter.
Some years ago I coined Kaplan’s Mnemomic, S*M*I*L*E to help doctors remember the health benefits of laughter. A year or two later a new study showed laughter also to be good for your heart. Now yet another study shows that laughter is an excellent form of exercise that can lower your blood pressure and normalize your weight.
Once again the man in the white coat was Dr Lee Berk (who in the study mentioned above, showed that laughter can lower blood pressure and prevent heart attacks) who conducted the following experiment on 14 healthy volunteers:
1. Everyone watched a distressing 20 minute video – the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan. Blood pressure and appetite hormones leptin and ghrelin measured.
2. One week later (to prevent overlap of video influence) everyone watches their own chosen 20 minute comedy clip and the same investigations done.
Results:
Distressing Clip: no significant change to blood pressure or appetite hormones.
Funny Clip: Changes in blood pressure and appetite hormones occurred similar to what is seen after a bout of healthy exercise!
Conclusions: In addition to all its other physical health benefits as well as obvious psychological and spiritual ones, laughter is also good for regulating appetite. In Dr Berk’s opinion laughter or ‘laughercise’ could be very helpful for people suffering from wasting diseases who may find it difficult to do traditional forms of exercise.
And believe it or not ladies and gentlemen, this is bona fide EVIDENCE BASED MEDICINE! It really seems that the more scientists look for benefits of laughter, the more they find. Not all patients undergoing Provocative Therapy laugh in the sessions but many do – so it’s good to know that as patients are therapeutically provoked to prescribe their own solutions to their problems, they are also doing ‘internal jogging’ or ‘laughercise’ to benefit their physical health!
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