Grin and Bear It

BY LORI BROTHERS

Always laugh when you can. During stressful times putting yourself in the right conditions for laughter is essential to your wellbeing. If you don’t know what makes you laugh, now is the time to become curious. Search for television shows, movies, cartoons, and people you know with like interests and temperaments. When was the last time you texted ROFL (Rolling On Floor Laughing).

For the body, mind and emotions laughter is like a little vacation from internal and external stressors. Laughter is good for the health and healing of the whole of you – whether experiencing anxiety, depression, or physical tension (internal), or coping with stress from conditions you are facing externally in your environment.

Body, mind, emotions and energy levels are cleansed and rejuvenated by a good laugh. Laughter is infectious. This is the contagion we can focus on spreading.

"Laughter therapy" teaches people how to laugh openly and to cope in difficult situations by using humor. Physician Patch Adams pioneered the therapeutic benefits of laughter and humor. Now 500 academicians belong to the International Society for Humor Studies.

A study at the University of Maryland Medical Center shows laughter increases our capacity to fight various diseases by increasing our antibody production, per sharecare.com. “Laughter reduces the levels of stress hormones like cortisol. Our bodies relax when we laugh, and we reduce our risk of heart disease, hypertension, strokes, arthritis, and other inflammatory diseases,” says the preventive health care website.

Humor may raise the level of infection-fighting antibodies in the body and boost the levels of immune cells. A good giggle lowers blood sugar levels, stimulates the relaxation response in the nervous system and improves sleep. What a great way to improve your quality of life!

Researchers estimate that laughing 100 times is equal to 10 minutes on a rowing machine or 15 minutes on an exercise bike. Studies show the effects of laughter and exercise are very similar and laughter appears to burn calories.

Remember to smile if you are not in a moment of laughter. Smiling is a language the body understands, just like deep breathing. If you smile when no one else is around, you really mean it…at least your body thinks so. A smile spurs a chemical reaction in the brain. Hormones including dopamine and serotonin are released. These chemicals in the body reduce stress. Lower levels of them are associated with depression.

Depression weakens the body’s immune system, while happiness has been shown to boost our body’s resistance. So make sure, if you’re not busting a gut on the way to the grocery store, that you are smiling under that mask while you are shopping.

The University of Kansas studied the effects of smiling and blood pressure. They discovered that those who were smiling had a lower blood pressure than those who were not smiling. When you feel a smile, even forced one, the body reads a signal for happiness.  So, there is truth in the saying, “Grin and bear it.”