In the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Bob Haskin's character asks the voluptuous Jessica Rabbit, whose voice was Kathleen Turner's, why she is with the silly rabbit. Her reply is classic, "He makes me laugh."
You can laugh yourself to health.
It turns out that all that positive thinking is good for us. Much of the self help material since the 1940's has focused on positive thinking, not worrying, letting it go, meditation, living in the moment, and the more recent over-marketed "mindfulness". All have their origins in Buddhism (4000 years old) and the 20th century's Norman Vincent Peale. Peale, you may remember, is famous for his Power of Positive Thinking book and brand.
The reason all this talk therapy stuff works to make us live longer and healthier may just now be seen in some interesting research on laughter. Apparently, laughing causes our vascular system to relax and dilate. Stress, fear, and anxiety cause our vascular system to constrict. Vasoconstriction puts an extra load on the heart. Laughing and smiling, ease the demands on the heart making blood flow more easily.
The more constricted the arteries, the more difficult it is to live long without damage done by heart attacks and strokes. Our fat-laden diet adds to this, of course, as do other factors including genetics. Still, no matter what your arteries are like, their functions are improved by laughing.
This interesting research was done at the University of Maryland School of Medicine by lead researcher, Michael Miller, and his crew. Blood flow reduced in subjects when they watched the opening scene of "Saving Private Ryan". I, for one, had my heart completely stop for that beginning.
Those same subjects' blood flow increased when shown clips from the comedy "Something About Mary". I don't know how they statistically filtered out the blood rush caused by Cameron Diaz in that movie. I think she had every male heart beating a little faster, but that's another study.
Whenever I was in a doctor's waiting room as a child I always found The Reader's Digest, which was a big deal in publishing at the time. The only thing I read were the jokes. Some of the best were in a regular feature called, interestingly enough, "Laughter is the Best Medicine". The Maryland researchers showed us the reason it works, but it has long been known that health is improved by laughter.
"Laughter reduces pain, increases job performance, connects people emotionally, and improves the flow of oxygen to the heart and brain." That quote is from Psychology Today in 2005!
While we need to have more than one emotion to have a full life, laughing can increase with a little work. A lot is attitude. Another part is what life experiences we are exposed to. Trauma obviously makes it harder to laugh and have a positive view of life. Genetics have also been shown to influence who's happy and who's not.
We can, however, no matter what hand we are dealt, alter our outcomes by practicing humor and finding ways to laugh.
Get healthy. Think funny thoughts!
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