Is laughter really the best medicine?

You’ve heard the expression before, but is laughter really the best medicine?

Go to a comedy show, reminisce, hang out with friends, there are many ways to get in a good laugh. We sometimes measure whether we had a good time by the amount of laughing that was done. It’s fun and contagious, and now there is one more reason to do it - it can improve your health.

Ken Weizer, N.D., a naturopathic physician at Providence Integrative Medicine encourages you to laugh at least a minute a day, even if you don’t have anything funny to laugh at. “Just start laughing,” says Dr. Weizer. “You don’t need someone or something to stimulate a reaction; you can do it by yourself.” Dr. Weizer explains that laughing will reduce stress and pain and will boost your immune system. Laughing affects your emotions, which in turn affects your cardiovascular health. When you laugh the tissues of the inner lining of your blood vessels expand, which increases your blood flow. When blood flow is increased, mental stress decreases.

Life is too short to take it so seriously all the time. Think back to the days of childhood and remember how enjoyable those times were - not because we didn’t have as much responsibility (maybe we thought we did at the time), but because we took more time to enjoy ourselves. There are situations we can’t control, but we still stress about them. Try laughing, instead, and see how it makes you feel.

Laughing makes you feel good and you can’t feel good and bad at the same time, so laugh. Do it now. Take one minute and laugh. Ready, set, go...

Doesn’t that feel good?