Laugh and smile your way to health
We smile in the first month of our lives and many people smile in their last moment of life. Smiling and laughter are gestures that exist in all cultures and nationalities. It is a common language without words.
Recent scientific data states adults laugh approximately fifteen times a day, while children laugh about four hundred times a day .This natural instinct for smiling and laughter develops within the first month of life. However, it seems our capacity to laugh diminishes as we grow older.. There are different kinds of smiles. Besides a genuine smile there are other smiles which are social signals but a genuine smile is difficult to fake. Our subconscious instinctively tells us when a smile is genuine. We feel the difference. Smiling is controlled in a healthy human being by the cerebral cortex, the part of the brain that is governed by the deep primitive brain structures that are connected to our emotions. Scientists believe that this response evolved as a way for our ancestors to help cement important bonds and reduce tensions in times of stress.
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If you desire a totally free and simple way to boost your spirits and your health with no prescription needed, then you want to smile and laugh as much as possible. It's as simple as it sounds. Laughing and smiling, in other words allowing yourself to be swept away with overall good humour, is beneficial to your well being.. A healthy body starts with a healthy attitude, a sense of purpose and a total feeling of self worth and value. This feeling directly stimulates the nervous and endocrine systems, making your immune system and cellular biochemistry stronger. The feel good factor is a natural way to prevent illness. Research has shown that smiling and laughter is more than just voice and movement. Laughter requires the co-ordination of many muscles throughout the body, increasing blood pressure, positively adjusting the cardiovascular system, respitory, muscular, central and nervous systems and endocrine system, and a boost to the immune system.
Smiling and laughter improves health. It is a good way for people to relax because muscle tension is reduced by laughing. There is evidence that laughter can reduce feelings of pain, prevent negative stress reactions and boost the brains biological battle against infection. Smiling releases a natural chemical called endorphine into your system that triggers a feeling of euphoria.
If you are facing illness, having a positive outlook and a sense of humour will help your body open to healing. Research has shown that harnessing the power of the mind and thinking positively can help people recover more quickly to illness than those with a negative attitude to life. If you are healthy, smiling and laughter will help you make sure you stay that way and can add enjoyment to your work and home life and reduce daily stress. Of course it can be hard to keep a positive outlook all the time. Simply taking the time to focus on the positive and be thankful for the good things in your life can help to drastically reduce stress. A smile can have infinite possibilites, starting on your doorstep in the morning with a chain reaction that ends up far, far away in the afternoon. We are fortunate to live in a beautiful environment and a peaceful society, free of war and famine. Take the time to connect with your inner self. Bring an awareness into your day for joy. Listen to your partner, talk to your children, give time to your elders. Walk in the park and the mountains and absorb the natural energies of the plants, trees, herbs and flowers. Look out into the universe at night and appreciate the stars and the planets.
Humour and laughter can create an environment where hope can flourish because it provides a sense of joy and helps us connect with family and friends and inspires an appreciation and gratitude for life.
Like wit and the comic. Humour has a liberating element,. It is the triumph of narcisism, the ego's victorious assertion of it's own invulnerability. It refuses to suffer the slings and arrows of realities. Freud 1905
Sandra Costello
Practitioner of Reflexology and Massage.
