Do you dread exercising? Avoid riding your exercise bike? Skip pilates? Researchers estimate that laughing 100 times is equal to 10 minutes on a rowing machine or 15 minutes on an exercise bike. Even fifteen minutes of laughter burns 40 calories. Can there be any easier way to trim a few ounces?
You can laugh anywhere anytime ... except at wakes or funerals. You need no equipment, no special clothing or footwear. Any number can participate with you regardless of age or sex, on the spur of the moment. And you won’t need a shower.
Dr. Mehmet Oz says laughter produces endorphins in the body. Endorphins are hormones equivalent to a narcotic that serve as the body’s natural pain reliever. They reduce stress, boost energy, enhance mood and ultimately create a feeling of well-being.
Laughter lowers your levels of stress hormones. Stress hormones suppress the immune system and increase the number of blood platelets (which might cause obstructions in arteries) and raise blood pressure. Stress hormones also can lead to excess belly fat, heart disease and high blood pressure.
Laughter increases your production of antibodies, which strengthens your immune system. In addition, laughter increases your heart and lung capacity in the same way a brisk walk does.
“Blood pressure is lowered, there is an increase in blood flow and oxygenation, which further helps healing. Your diaphragm and abdominal, respiratory, facial, leg and back muscles get a workout during laughter. That’s why you might feel exhausted after a long bout of laughter -- you’ve just had your exercise!”
“Laughter therapy” teaches people how to laugh openly and to cope in difficult situations by using humor.
Patch Adams, the real life inspiration of the Robin Williams’ movie, pioneered the therapeutic benefits of laughter and humour. Now 500 academicians belong to the International Society for Humor Studies.
Humour and laughter not only reduce weight but lengthen life. Think of the many aged comedians who entertain us. George Burns and Bob Hope lived past 100. Art Buchwald (humorist and political satirist in newspaper columns) lived past 81 despite being a diabetic who chose to give up dialysis. Doctors predicted without dialysis he would die within a few weeks. Instead he hung on for ten months, wrote a final book and daily indulged in fast food, rich desserts and ice cream.
Carl Reiner is 89 as is Sid Caesar, famous for his fake German. Betty White at 89 is busier than ever acting in a new series, Hot in Cleveland, published a book “If You Ask Me”, and appears regularly on TV talk shows like Leno or Letterman, even hosted Saturday Night Live. At 78, Joan Rivers is a comic youngster.
At a reduction of only 40 calories in 15 minutes, laughing burns calories slowly. So does writing with a pen. But the benefits accumulate. Handwriting is niftier than typing for making multiple corrections, additions, deletions, and transpositions that are part of joke writing.
Because handwriting exercises the brain more than typing, it helps to slow the onset of Alzheimers. Handwriting takes thought. You have more time to rearrange the pattern of your sentences, moving words around in your head before you commit them to paper.
Seniors are advised to engage in puzzles and other mindbending games to keep their brains sharp but games merely while away the time. Handwriting gets you somewhere, commits your thoughts to be reviewed later or to inform others far in the future .
Adding more laughter to your life is easy and much more fun than sweating through a strenuous routine.