Laughter Work Out

Laughing for an hour a day could help you to burn as many calories as if you had been lifting weights for thirty minutes.

The G.O.L.D. Daily Laughter Diet study led by Dr. Helen Pilcher, who formerly of the London Institute of Psychiatry, and her fellow researcher, Timandra Harkness, is bound to spread a ray of hope through the gloom of January, a time associated with depression.

Dr Helen Pilcher, a comedian and neuroscientist has been researching the effects of laughter, and found that laughing for an hour can burn between 100 - 120 calories. This is a far more enjoyable way of dieting than say, hoovering for forty minutes, walking for twenty minutes, or weightlifting, and the bonus is that if you laughed for an hour a day for a whole year, you could lose over eleven pounds in weight.

Laughter has many positive health effects: and has many similarities to an aerobic work-out.

When you giggle, you can end up gasping for air, which then helps to increase the amount of oxygen in your blood. As your chest goes in and out then your abdominal muscles work hard, and, even better than all of this, your endorphin levels are raised, while stress hormones are lowered.

Other bonuses mentioned in the study are that you don't have to spend money on exercise equipment: expensive running kit and shoes, just sit in front of your TV for example, and switch on. And, hopefully, injuries sustained from over-laughing are few and far between, whereas over-exercising injuries are common. Obviously, it's not recommended that you do no exercise at all.

Some health benefits suggested are:


• Increases blood flow equals a vascular work out, which is great for the heart (Miller, 2005). Laughter increases artery diameter by 22%, just like aerobic exercise.

• Increased oxygen in the blood. Temporary increase in heart rate (by 10-20%) and blood pressure and in oxygenated blood flow. (Boone 2000).

• Boosts levels of dopamine in the brain - the 'feel good' signalling hormone.

• Laughter can help to deal with pain - experimental partcipants who watched comedy while experimenters tightened a cuff around their wrists experienced less discomfort than those watching unfunny films.

• Decreases levels of cortisol by around around 39%, and adrenalin around 70% lower. Both can help people to feel stressed, if ungoverned.

• Laughter promotes levels of immunoglobulins (disease-fighting proteins) and immune cells (T cells, natural killer cells)

• Increases success rate of IVF

• Increases leptin (key protein found in milk, involved in fat metabolism) concentration in breast milk.

• Can help blood sugar levels. A study of diabetes patients by the University of Tsukuba in Ibaraki, Japan, showed that laughing at stand up comedy for 40 minutes after a meal lowered the increase in their blood sugar, compared to the same group watching a boring 40-minute lecture without jokes. A similar response was seen in non-diabetic subjects.

What happens when you laugh:

A laugh can cause around fifteen muscles in your face to start working - including the zygomatic major muscle, which makes you smile. Increased blood-flow makes your face light up, giving you a healthy glow. As your diaphragm moves up, this causes the abdominal muscles to contract and relax, which then forces air out of the mouth - a laugh. (Unless you're a 'huffer' - a silent laugher.)

MRI scans show that brain changes take place, too. The left side cortex is busy, analysing the meaning of the words, while the frontal lobe is involved in the emotional response, and the right side of the cortex helps you understand the joke. The motor areas in the cerebellum will create your physical responses, while a visual will promote activity in the occipital lobe.

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