5 Reasons You Should Laugh More
What do you feel when you laugh? Happiness? Joy? Surely laughter fills your life and gives it a joyous and happy tone. But, do you laugh as much as you should?
The responsibilities, the toxic people and the problems in day to day life can make laughter disappear from our lives.
Surely you’ve heard before that laughter is the best medicine and that it solves everything; they aren’t exaggerating with this statement.
Laughing about everything, including ourselves, helps to give us strength, keep our self-esteem high and prepare to us to face adversity.
There’s an incredibly extensive scientific background to prove it, so it’s not just a silly myth. Here’s why you should laugh more…
“A day without laughter is a day wasted.”
-Charlie Chaplin-
1. To release stress and anxiety
Stress and anxiety are so much a part of your day that by the end of the day you’re exhausted. Am I right? Living in a rush, following busy schedules, trying to achieve impossible goals, make us get to the point where we just can’t keep going.
A good laugh helps every time. You won’t be able to completely rid yourself of the stress or anxiety (which can even be good on occasion) but it will reduce it’s impact on you.
Laughing at certain situations and finding the humor in them can help to reduce your stress and anxiety levels. Don’t deny yourself humor, it’s a fundamental element to your resilience.
2. To improve your emotional health
Laughing has great psychological benefits that improve your emotional health. When we laugh or use our sense of humor, our brain produces dopamine, which provides us a greater sense of pleasure.
We also release serotonin, which helps in a similar way, by making us feel relaxed, eliminating stress and generating a state of euphoria. All of this helps to deal with the emotional and physical pain that you may be dealing with.
That being said, when faced with a difficult task or situation, try laughing, for a change!
3. To promote cardiovascular health
Though it may seem impossible to believe, laughing can be beneficial to our blood vessels. You may be asking yourself: “How is that possible?”
When we laugh, our blood vessels dilate, causing our blood flow to increase. This is really important for anyone who’s at risk of suffering a cardiovascular disease.
If you have a heart problem, start laughing! Surround yourself with people that have a great sense of humor, and will help you to laugh naturally.
Only your natural laughter will be beneficial to your cardiovascular health. Don’t let yourself be affected by it for a lack of good humor.
Laughter is important, not only because it makes us happy, it also has actual health benefits. And that’s because laughter completely engages the body and releases the mind. It connects us to others, and that in itself has a healing effect.
-Marlo Thomas-
4. To improve your respiratory system
Just like it helps your blood vessels, laughing also helps your respiratory system. It’s the simplest way of regulating our breathing and cleaning our lungs. How can it do that? Well, prolonged and sometimes uncontrollable laughter helps to speed up our breathing and our heart rate. By doing it, you’re increasing your oxygen intake, which is very beneficial to your body.
Laughing can also help us release contaminated or “dirty” air from our lungs, filling them with fresh, pure air. For example, laughing can be a huge help if you’ve been in an environment surrounded by cigarette smoke.
5. To be more attractive
This last one has probably caught your eye in a particular way. Laughing can make me more attractive? Of course it can! Surely it catches your eye when you see someone laughing or when someone has a great sense of humor.
The attraction that can be felt towards someone who knows a good laugh is nothing more than their ability to make others feel comfortable, in confidence.
Besides, laughing is a great way to break the ice in an awkward situation. Keep in mind that optimism is always a good thing. It even has the potential to open doors to new jobs or opportunities that you hadn’t even considered.
If you’re already the laughing type, congratulations! We all go through good and bad times, but we should never leave our smile to the side.
Boost your confidence, surround yourself with positive people, and you’ll see how happy you’ll begin to feel in the easiest and simplest way. Laughter is the antidote to many, many problems in life.