Laughter: The Best Form of Exercise
Exercise is universally recognized as one of the cornerstones of a healthy life style. We exercise to lose weight, lower cholesterol, improve muscle strength and increase our life span. The benefits of exercise are proven and undeniable. Today, there are as many different ways to get into exercise as we can imagine.
Laughter: Another Form of Exercise
During the 1970s laughter as exercise started taking hold as a legitimate way to complement tradition forms of working out. The premise is simple – when people laugh, the body uses many of the same muscles that it uses when exercising. Consequently, the more and harder a person laughs, the more exercise benefit their body gets. The question is how much exercise does a person get from laughing?
Repetitive laughing is similar to repetitive moderate exercise because it is a physical activity that uses the same muscles and has the same effect on the body. We breather harder, blood is oxygenated, heart rate and blood flow increase and the body releases beneficial hormones. One researcher on laughter as exercise calculated that 100-200 laughs a day is equal to 10 minutes of rowing. Other researchers have investigated laughter’s effect on the human body and have consistently found that prolonged laughing – not just chuckle – improves cholesterol, reduces blood pressure, lowers stress hormones, strengthens the immune system and improves appetite.
Another benefit from both exercise and laughter is both produce a sense of well-being – a feeling of satisfaction and peace of mind that people experience after a good work out or a funny movie. This feeling is generated by the same hormones because laughter is exercise.
Integrating laughter into an exercise program requires a little creativity. However, it can be done. When children play outdoors they get more than their share of exercise and when it is fun, they laugh. While the idea of adults “playing” sounds a little off kilter, consider the fact that adults do play. Adults play tennis, basketball and other sports. They also play indoor board and computer games. Most adults play these games for the fun of it. Whenever people are playing, there are opportunities to laugh. There lies a connection between exercise and laughter – fun.
Kids can laugh and play; so can we. When we have fun, we’re more inclined to laugh. The more fun we have, the more we laugh. Group exercise activities are a great way to generate laughter and work out at the same time. Even yoga instructors and practitioners have figured out ways to incorporate laughter in to their sessions.
Laughter is Contagious
It is possible to exercise and laugh alone. Home exerciser’s can simply turn on a funny TV show or put a funny DVD in the player while exercising and they are set. However, laughter creates more laughter in groups. One person’s laughter will cause another person to laugh and the momentum builds until everyone in the group is laughing. Proponents of laughter as exercise see this chain reaction as one of the best ways to get people laughing. The beauty of it is that the more and harder people laugh, the more exercise they get.
Blending Exercise, Fun and Laughter
Most people rely on traditional methods of exercising – running, walking, cycling and weight lifting – as part of staying healthy. Outdoor exercise can be a great experience. Exercise regimes such as cross-country skiing build endurance and can be an exhilarating outdoor adventure. Runners get a rush of energy once they crash their runner’s wall and feel like they can run forever. The point being, outdoor exercise can be fun. Intense exercise can be a substitute for laughter as long as the exercise is personally rewarding and fun.
Indoor exercise is another matter. There are very few things more boring than walking on a treadmill, rowing or stair-stepping for exercise. While it gets the job done, it is painfully monotonous. Even though most gyms have TVs on the wall, ledges on equipment for books and a myriad of computer readouts on the machines, it is still hard to describe a machine work out as enjoyable and laughter is completely absent.
Here’s an idea. What if an exercise equipment company took the innovative step of installing screens on exercise equipment that played nothing but funny material? For instance, imagine the impact of stair-stepper’s, rowers and treadmills by Proform generating laughter from exerciser’s. It sounds like fun. The concept creates a great exercise environment by combining exercise, fun and laughter – and it is doable.
Laughter is the Best Medicine
Laughter is a complex physical process. Still, “Laughter is the best medicine” is an old adage that has been around for generations. Science is now learning what our grandparents understood years ago. Laughter is curative and beneficial to the body and the brain. Plenty of laughter help us sleep better, reduces the risk of chronic illnesses, energizes us, and improves our mood, so we live longer and age well.
Guest post by:
Agnes Embile Jimenez
Blogging Outreach Editor at Proform.Com
