Getting Through The Holidays with a Laugh
The holidays are a time for us to get together with loved ones. We exchange gifts and show our appreciation we have for one another.
For some of us the holidays can be somewhat stressful. The endless to do lists, the madness of trying to find the right gift for Jack or Jane and the stress of holiday travels. Well I’ve adopted a fun approach called “Laughter Therapy” to help me get through the holiday madness.
Research has shown laughter therapy can increase the bodies’ response to tolerate pain, increase the immune system and reduce food cravings. Kathy Overman, the author of “Laugh it off - Weight Loss for the Fun of it”, describes herself as being an overeater trying all types of diets and pills. After watching a program on laughter therapy she went straight to the fridge but then stopped herself by laughing hard. It worked for her! She found that laughing 30 seconds to five minutes as often as 10 times a day, her cravings stopped. She began losing weight, had more energy and developed a yen to exercise.
The physician, Patch Adams states, “the clearest connection (of laughter to weight-loss) is that depression, boredom and loneliness are the gigantic reasons why people eat and abundance of trash and fatty foods.” He founded the Gesundheit! Institute, which works to bring fun and creativity to health care. “It’s not really laughter that is a great power, but the life that leads to laughter and the readiness to laugh at things.”
Scientists found that laughter alone has benefits. A study from the University of Maryland School of Medicine showed that daily hearty laughing increases the blood flow by expanding stress-constricted vessels.
“A belly laugh is internal jogging,” says William Fry, associate professor emeritus of clinical psychiatry at Stanford University. Laughing involves “a great deal of physical exercise and muscular behavior” — 15 facial muscles plus dozens of others all over your body that flex and relax. Your pulse and respiration increase, oxygenating the blood.
“Laughing 100 to 200 times per day is the cardiovascular equivalent of rowing for 10 minutes,” Fry calculates.
In boot camp we’re lucky to have a few comedians among us. They may crack a joke when we’re asking them to twist their body a certain way or work against gravity. The humor they bring distracts their minds from the challenges of the exercises. It really works!
Try it and see what happens! Add 10 minutes of humor to your diet daily. It provides a good physical or emotional release. A good laugh exercises the diaphragm, contracts the abs and even works out the shoulders, leaving muscles more relaxed afterward. It is a good distracter and brings the focus away from anger, negative emotions. The great thing about laughter is that it’s contagious and others around you will benefit from it as well.
-Bernadette McLoughlin – “Instead of complaining of life’s frustrations just laugh at them!”
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