Laughter helps keep your heart healthy.
Laughter boosts blood flow to the arteries, causing them to widen and prevents hardening, hence staving off high blood pressure. Findings by Michael Miller, director of the Center for Preventive Cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, US, attributes this to the release of endorphins in the brain whenever you laugh. His 2005 study of 20 volunteers who watched a funny movie and a sad one revealed that average blood flow increased by 22 per cent after the former. Miller, the author of Heal Your Heart: The Positive Emotions Prescription to Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, recommends at least 15 minutes of laughter every day.
Laughter helps reduce belly fat.
Up to 40 calories – that’s how much 10 to 15 minutes of laughter a day can burn – according to International Journal of Obesity. Laughter is like exercise for your abs; as you laugh, the muscles in your tummy expand and contract repeatedly. If you’re conscientious, you could drop nearly 2kg every year. Now that’s enough to bring on a smile or two.
Laughter helps strengthen brain connectivity.
Research in PLOS One reveals that having to decipher types of laughter, for example, joyful vs taunting, can improve connectivity between different regions in the brain. We can then evaluate the message(s) being conveyed according to our understanding.