30 Minutes Of Laugh A Day; Keeps Heart Problem Away!

30 Minutes Of Laugh A Day; Keeps Heart Problem Away!For hundreds of years, we've known that “Laughter is the best form of medicine.”

It makes people feel good for a reason, and the physiological effects on the health are miraculous.

And, now a study claimed that by laughing 30 minutes daily, people can keep their hearts healthy.

The study was conducted by the researchers of Loma Linda University in Loma Linda, California.

The researchers discovered that watching comedy for just half-an-hour on a daily basis can help a person lessen his/her levels of stress hormones plus compounds, which are linked to disease of the heart.

Study’s lead researcher Dr. Lee Berk said, “The best clinicians understand that there is an intrinsic physiological intervention brought about by positive emotions such as mirthful laughter, optimism and hope.”

The study researchers looked at 20 men and women, who had diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels.

All took their tablets as normal, but the researchers asked half of the participants to choose a "mirthful laughter" in the form of 30 minutes of comedy on a daily basis.
 
Those patients made up the laughter group; the other patients served as a comparison group.

During the yearlong research, the patients had blood examinations after every two months.

The researchers found that stress hormone levels diminished in the laughter group after two months.

By four months into the study, the participants in the laughter group had lower blood levels of certain inflammatory chemicals, and the levels of "good" cholesterol, thought to defend against heart disease, also increased by 26%.

Patients who took the medicine without laughter had just a 3% rise.

The group watching comedy programmes also witnessed a fall of 66% in harmful C-reactive proteins that raises heart disease risk.

While the control group also saw a fall in the amount of the proteins, it was much smaller at 26 per cent over the course of the year.

The results of the study are presented at the Experimental Biology conference in New Orleans.

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