Alright, so everyone is interested in knowing more about how to live longer and healthier. Maybe not everyone admits it but trust me, all of us wants to live forever and if not, then just as long as possible.
I watched recently an interesting health and life-style Australian Tv-show that investigates myths and fables concerning health and well being.
Think about Myth Busters from Discovery just with health questions. Well, and in this show a small fragment was dedicated to how really healthy can laughter be. So they did some tests on a small group of people, measuring their blood pressure, signals in brain, and so on, while watching a comedy and then a serious war movie. As a result of the tests they confirmed that while laughing, the body gets relaxed, the blood veins become bigger and blood pressure is reduced and brain gets out from a stress condition by producing some hormones such as endorphins and serotonin known as happiness and good feeling hormones. With a little research I’m sure you will find out many more benefits, I just pointed out few.
Well and back to this show, they went even further by presenting a laughter therapist and few moments from a laughter therapy session. Quite interesting with the thought in mind that all these are healthy but I don’t say I really laughed watching it.
Ok, I’m convinced, laughter should be prescribed on medical receipt, and it really helps!
But now, the questions in my mind…what makes us laugh? We experience laughing by the age of 3-4 months. I read on BBC News webpage: "New research has given credence to the idea that laughter evolved in a common ancestor of the great apes and humans.’’
Our fellow great apes — orangutans, chimps, bonobos and gorillas — also squeal in response to tickling, and new research shows this behaviour may be the evolutionary root of human laughter. Ok, so we have it in our blood so to speak but, what makes us really laugh?
We humans, such sophisticated beings we really need something more than just tickling as we progress and more sophisticated triggers for laughter as we develop ourselves and grow up. The sense of humour depends on individual experiences and it begins to develop in early childhood.
Now it depends how you look upon life and how seriously you take it. I can imagine that someone with a social predisposition to criticism, a person with a deep sense of ridiculous or someone with a nihilistic way of thinking won’t succeed seeing much fun out there.
In an article from NY Times I read that ‘’ occasionally we’re surprised into laughing at something funny, but most laughter has little to do with humour. It’s an instinctual survival tool for social animals, not an intellectual response to wit. It’s not about getting the joke. It’s about getting along.’’ Alright, I know out there lots that laugh just for the laugh’s sake or just as a social tool when there is a lack in self-confidence but now I’m interested more into laughter as a health purpose.
I don’t remember since I last time laughed so hard that I had belly muscles pain but I go further with my little experiment and I try search for something funny.
Alright, here are my few findings on how to create opportunities to laugh:
A good funny book
A good comedy movie
A good comedy theatre play
A good comedian
A funny song…
Well nothing made me really laugh as I was looking to laugh. It’s a fact that the key to laying down humour patterns in the brain is the element of surprise. So I decided to stop looking for something funny and let the fun come out to surprise me.
Back here after a month..and still wondering how that laughter therapy actually works if there is no surprise-:)
SvaraRadera