It’s Quite Possible, Laughter Is the Best Medicine

This past weekend my husband and I took a much needed break from all the stress and busyness of life and plopped down on the old sofa and watched hours and hours of what my mom calls 'rubbish' on tv.

You know, silly movies, sitcoms and copious amounts of reality tv. Well, the best part of all is that we laughed and laughed for hours and it felt really great. Almost as good as a nice long walk or a bike ride. Now I'm not suggesting that you replace exercise with laughter, nor am I suggesting that you spend hours in front of the tv, but I am definitely suggesting that you add laughter to your daily routine. Taking care of ourselves is obviously an important part of wellness, but a simple little thing like laughter is pretty nice too.

So, all of this got me thinking. Sure, we can agree on the importance of eating a healthy diet and exercising regularly to ward off stress. But how about laughter? Have we considered laughter seriously enough as a stress management tool? Well, I took it upon myself to dig a little deeper into these feelings of elation my hubby and I were experiencing and what do you know? Mounting research conducted over the past decade supports the idea that laughter is an excellent tool for coping with stress. It appears humor reduces stress, stimulates the immune system and renews energy. Now that's good stuff.

Stress has been shown to create unhealthy physiological changes. The connection between high blood pressure, muscle tension, suppression of the immune system and many other changes have been known for years. There is now proof available that laughter creates the opposite effects. In addition to lowering blood pressure and decreasing tension, the experience of laughter causes these amazing physiological things to take place in the body which in turn generate immune boosting results.

Our emotions and moods directly impact our immune system. Positive emotions have a positive effect. Finding humor in a situation and laughing freely can be a powerful antidote to stress. A sense of humor gives us the ability to find delight, experience joy, and release tension. Humor gives us a sense of perspective on our problems. The key is learning how to laugh.