Laugh Your Stress Away, It's No Joke!
Whether it's having a good chuckle at your favourite TV Show, reading a funny book or even a giggle with friends and family laughter affects our bodies in an incredible way.
It's National Stress Awareness Day today and in light of this we wanted to put a big red shiny stamp on the benefits of laughter in improving the impact of stress on our bodies. Stress affects everyone, some more than others. But feeling overwhelmed by the amount of stress that you are under can not only lead to mental health problems it can also contribute to health problems including high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes.
So how does laughter actually help us to heal?
- It fires up and relieves your stress responses / hormones
- Diffusing the situations: Anger can even help to lessen the load and impact of anger and conflict. That's not to say laughing in someone's face after an argument is a good idea! Rather the opposite. But sharing a laugh or seeing the funny side to situations can help you move along from difficult situations in life without holding on to any bitterness or resentment.
- And Relaxxxx: Laughter even impacts our physical body and not our faces from smiling too much. By laughing we lend a helping hand to enable our muscles to relax, neat huh? Maybe soon we can laugh ourselves into a six pack.
- A Chemical Reaction: Laughing releases a number of chemicals in our bodies that not only provides us with the feel good factor (and possibly a stitch) it also boosts the immune system's responses
Unclogger: - Yes and we're not talking about the drain kind. Laughter allows free flow of emotions in the human body helping to open the suppressed emotions stored within our bodies
When they laughter is the best medicine they weren't joking! But don't forget, Laughter isn't the only remedy for stress but it's definitely a good start! For more tips on dealing with stress head over to MIND's website for everyday tips living with stress:
The Comedy Trust run a range of programmes that work to improve people's overall mental health and wellbeing equipping them with the tools to combat stress, look at life in a positive way, enhance relationships and improve their personal resilience, confidence and self-esteem. For more information on our comedy, humour and laughter programmes see below:
