SO LEARN TO LAUGH MORE

By: MUHAMMAD MAHTAB BASHIR
ISLAMABAD
mahtabbashir@yahoo.com

A continuous expanding body of medical research now confirms that laughter is a powerful medicine in alleviating the impact that stressful events have on our lives and in actually preventing accidents reversing disease. Laughter is a happy and pleasant experience. Moreover, when you get angry, you get wrinkles, and when you are smiling, you get a dimple without spending a single penny.

Smile is a tiny crooked line that makes all matters straight. It temporarily diverts our attention and dissipates feelings of fear, anger, isolation and physical pain. Laughter can be the doorway to purging harmful emotions and resolving mental tension. It is a form of a therapy that encourages us to release the painful emotions of anger, fear and boredom. Laughter enables the processing of information in a new way. New perceptions can lead to different and healthier solutions.

William Fry, M.D., psychiatrist and professor emeritus at Stanford University, documented physiological changes from laughter similar to intense aerobic exercises. He stated that, “One hundred laughs are equal to ten minutes of aerobics exercise”.

Laughter can also help the immune system. Research at the Department of Clinical Immunology at Loma Linda University School of Medicine has demonstrated that the experience of laughter lowers the level of certain stress hormones and stimulates the immune system by increasing the number of activated T cells and activated T helper cells. In addition, mirthful laughter enhances the activity of natural killer cells that play a crucial role in preventing different diseases.

To create more smiles and laughter, try any one or all of these humour strategies:

· Cultivate a playful attitude
· Find humour in daily life
· Learn to belly laugh and share jokes
· Hang out with people who are fun to be with, who makes you laugh
· Learn to laugh at yourself
· And Laugh with others not at others.

MUHAMMAD MAHTAB BASHIR
House # 2026, Street # 32,
I-10/2, ISLAMABAD.
Cell: 0300 52 56 875
mahtabbashir@gmail.com

Lalarukh Farooq from Islamabad Emails':

Tue, Jun 3, 2008 at 9:00 AM

Humm this is good. to some extent things described in this piece of writting r right.

Tania Shah from Islamabad Emails':

Dear Mahtab,

Thanks for the info but i really doubt prof.emeritus research on laughter .. ... can i lose 10 pounds by laughing 1000 times?

khush raho....hanstay raho....hansataay rahoo

taniya-

Taniya Shah

M.Phil Department of Anthropology

Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan