The Power of Laughter

Laughter heals, connects, is contagious, increases happiness, lessens depression and strengthens your immune system, boosts your energy, diminishes pain, and protects you from the damaging effects of stress. Not only is it helpful to your health and well being, it is FREE and it is FUN!!! Your ability to laugh easily and often is a huge innate resource for overcoming problems, making your relationships better, and supporting both your physical and emotional health.

How it helps in your biology:

1.   Laughter relaxes you all over. The deeper you laugh the more your body is involved in the exercise. Your deep laughter releases physical tension and lowers your stress levels. Because your body holds all the chemicals you need for your betterment, laughter opens the door for your own pharmacy to create and allow healing, renewal within your biology.

2.   Stress hormones do quite a bit of damage to your biology. Laughter decreases the production of that hormone while INCREASING your immune cells and your infection fighting antibodies thus giving you a better and stronger resistance to illness.

3.   Laughing releases your body’s natural “feel good” chemicals, your endorphins. This creates a feeling of well being and reduces pain.

4.   Laughter is good for your heart, your biological one I mean. Because laughter increases blood flow and makes your vessels work better, it decreases chances of heart attack and lowers the risk of other issues within your cardiovascular system.

Now for what laughter does for your mental health:

1.   It is impossibility to feel sad, angry or depressed when you are truly laughing.

2.   Because of the stress reliving aspect of laughter, you are more energetic and able to focus on your tasks better.

3.   This one is important because it touches on the changing of your perspective and that will change everything. Laughter makes things and situations not so intimidating and frightening. It brings a reality to them that give you the understanding that you can handle the situation just fine.

4.   Laughter keeps you from feeling overwhelmed by looming issues… brings them down to size and moves them away so you have breathing room.

As you can see, laughter creates a sturdy platform on which to turn things around for yourself in a fun and easy way. Here are some ideas to help you find your laughter. Watch a funny (to you) movie. Allow that what is funny to one person may not be funny to you and go for what you find funny.

Laughter in a group is more powerful than laughing alone so find your laughing friends or your, as Uncle Remus called it, laughing place. Have a fun night and invite friends to laugh with. A comedy club might be just the ticket. Enjoy time with a pet and/or favorite children. Be spontaneous! The point is to make time for fun. Don’t allow your work-a-day world to take away your laughter.

It has been said that “Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly” and following this adage is a good idea. The less seriously you take any given situation, the less likely it is to take you down.

So you may be wondering how to be up when you really feel down. The first thing you have to do is to choose to change the way you feel. The second thing is to smile. The third thing you can do is to be grateful for all your blessings, both the realized and the not yet realized. Make a list if you need to. You can’t feel bad when you are in a state of gratitude for, you see, joy and sadness can not exist in the same space.

When you hear laughter, move toward it. Just as those with good sense move away from pain toward pleasure, moving from sadness toward laughter will uplift you.

Develop the ability to laugh at yourself! Like the saying goes, “If God is always watching I feel it is my duty to be entertaining.” Laughter is a thing we were born with, therefore it is innate, God-given and a natural thing for us to do. Since we were created to be a whole, happy and healthy creation, don’t you think we should honor that creative process and LAUGH