May 31, 2012 5 Fun, Health Promoting Strategies, Laughter - Strategy #1
On June 7th. I will be giving a presentation at the Atwater Library in Montreal addressing my 5 fun strategies to boost your immune system while adding more pleasure into your everyday life. The acronym LMNOP serves as an easy reminder to help you to use and remember the 5 strategies.
- Laughter
- Music
- Nurturing and loving yourself
- Opening your senses - or being mindful
- Playing or playfulness
Today I am going to talk about the first strategy.
Laughter: A good belly laugh increases your immune response. More specifically, it increases the activity level of natural killer and T-cells, claims a study done out of Loma Linda University in California. Dr. Pearsall, the author of The Pleasure Prescription: To Love, To Work, To Play, Life in the Balance, reinforces the benefits of laughter saying it lowers your serum cortisol level and increases antibodies for more than 36 hours after a hard laugh. Laughter also helps pick us up when we are feeling down or having a hard day.
So when was the last time you had a really good laugh? What makes you laugh? Maybe it's reading jokes or watching funny movies or Youtube videos. I know for me, getting together with family or good friends always results in a few belly laughs, sometimes my jaw gets sore I laugh so hard.
I invite you to think of ways to actively bring more laughter into your life everyday to benefit not only from the immune boost and the emotional and physical release, but also just for the sheer fun of it! Here is a video that may get you laughing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McdD9Ng4VnY
Next time we'll talk about how Music acts your physiology.
Jackie
Reader Comments (1)
Laughter can be the best medicine for many parts of the body to function well. Laughter relaxes many of the muscles which are there underlying the face and includes belly muscles also. So the muscles gets toned up and there is a feeling of relaxation on account of this laughing habits. However one point which I want to say is that laughter should be inside means it should come from inside not just waking up in the morning and join the laughing classes and then again after laughing classes same to same.