IS LAUGHTER THE BEST MEDICINE?

CAN LAUGHING EACH DAY
KEEP THE DOCTOR AWAY?

http://health.yahoo.net - Need a good laugh? Here’s one to tickle your funnybone: giggling keeps your heart stronger, might lower your blood sugar levels and even enhances your friendships. Researchers studying the health benefits of laughter agree: unlike stress and worry, laughing doesn’t hurt us, physically or emotionally—and it may very well cure what ails us. Nor does it take long for our systems to respond to something funny. Less than half a second, in fact, is all the time our brains need to see or hear a joke, “get” it, and tell our bodies that it’s time to smile or laugh. Laughter truly is as spontaneous as we’ve always believed it to be. Joking around may not heal every ailment, but the health benefits of a good laugh are far-reaching. 
Here are a few: You can laugh your way to a healthier heart. Researchers first linked laughter to healthy blood vessels in 2005, when they showed two movies to volunteers and found that when watching a funny movie, brachial artery flow increased 22 percent. 

Watching a movie that caused mental stress had the opposite effect, slowing blood flow about 35 percent. Laughing will help your heart, but a healthy heart also will help you laugh more easily. Michael Miller, MD, director of the Center for Preventive Cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center, conducted both the 2005 study and more recent research that found individuals with heart disease laughed less than healthier people - and affirming that not only laughter but an ongoing sense of humor may keep heart attacks at bay. 
“The ability to laugh - either naturally or as learned behavior - may have important implications in societies such as the US where heart disease remains the number one killer,” he said. The fact is, laughing is a physical act - not just an emotion - whose physical nature helps laughers find a stimulus pleasurable, or funny. Laughing is good for your blood sugar. Laughing makes you smarter. Laughter attunes people to each other.

Not everyone is funny - or chuckles easily - by nature. But even if you have to fake it, laughter can boost your health. Lisa Collier Cool explains that a researcher at Vanderbilt University, Maciej Buchowski, found that 10-15 minutes of laughing burned off 50 calories, while another laughter scientist, William Fry, said that one minute of robust laughter sent his heart rate to the same level as 10 minutes on a rowing machine. She also mentions that Ron Berk, PhD, retired psychologist from Johns Hopkins Medical School, began telling jokes in class and noticed his students performed better in exams. In this material world there are many reasons to be sad. But there are many more reasons to be happy, grateful, and to do something wonderful in this world.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US? 

Smile. Because you are spirit soul. Smile because you are eternal. Smile because God is in your heart. Smile because you can chant the Holy Names. Smile because you can go to the temple and do service. ... Smile because Krishna loves you. ... Smile because you can make yourself useful in helping others. Smile because your life is a chance to make others smile. Their smile is a flower and every flower is a smile of God. And if you smile for God your smile becomes like a flower to attract people to God. So don’t show your stone face, in South America we say, don’t show your wood face, don’t show your negativity. ... Be joyful, be thankful. And laugh about yourself. But really, have a good laugh, I mean a real thundering laughter, laugh about this silly guy who gets angry, who eats too much, who likes to hide behind other peoples faults, who has a big ego although he is a little nobody.

Śrīla Bhakti Aloka Paramadvaiti Mahārāja :
Vrinda Sunday Chats
Chat from Berlin,Germany, August 9, 2009.
http://vrindachats.blogspot.com.ar/
http://vrindachats.blogspot.com/2009/08/august-92009.html

Published by dasavatara das - "Vedic Views on World News"
http://www.vedicviews-worldnews.blogspot.com.ar/