Laughing and Calories

A study was commissioned by the comedy channel GO LD (Go On Laugh Daily) in Great Britain. Researchers, led by Helen Pilcher, PhD, looked into the number of calories burned by intense laughing and compared it to the calorie burn of other daily activities (strength training, running, and vacuuming).


They found that intense laughter by itself is its own workout. An hour of it can benefit you as much as a half hour of hitting it hard at the gym. Laughing burns calories, but it can also boost total energy expenditure by up to 20 percent. One hour of laughter burns up to 120 calories, about the same as 18 to 27 minutes of weight training, 15 to 20 minutes of walking, or 40 minutes’ vacuuming (unless you have a Roomba).

Laughing

Did you know that laughing stimulates neurotransmitters in the brain that improve learning and increase attention span.

Another Benefit of Laughing

Laughing helps burn calories by increasing your heart rate by 10 to 20 percent. Your metabolism increases as well, meaning you will burn more calories at rest once you have stopped laughing. Find something hilarious which makes you laugh, watch a funny movie or TV show for 15 minutes and burn up to 50 calories.

Over the course of a laughter-filled year, the daily calories burnt from laughing result in a net loss of more than 4 pounds.

Another Ten Interesting Facts About Humans

1. Laughing lowers levels of stress hormones and strengthens the immune system. Six-year-olds laugh an average of 300 times a day. Adults only laugh 15 to 100 times a day. Am glad I have not grown up.
   
2. Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
3. The human heart creates enough pressure while pumping to squirt blood 30 feet.
4. The brain operates on the same amount of power as 10-watt light bulb. Your brain generates as much energy as a small light bulb even when you are sleeping.
5. The brain is much more active at night than during the day.
6. The brain itself cannot feel pain. The brain might be the pain center when you cut your finger or burn yourself, but the brain itself does not have pain receptors.
7. The fastest growing nail is on the middle finger and the nail on the middle finger of your dominant hand will grow the fastest of all. Nail growth is related to the length of the finger, with the longest fingers growing nails the fastest and shortest the slowest.
8. The lifespan of a human hair is 3 to 7 years on average.
9. Human hair is virtually indestructible. Aside from it’s flammability, human hair decays at such a slow rate that it is practically non-disintegrative. Hair cannot be destroyed by cold, change of climate, water, or other natural forces and it is resistant to many kinds of acids and corrosive chemicals.
10. The acid in your stomach is strong enough to dissolve razorblades. Hydrochloric acid, the type found in your stomach, is not only good at dissolving pizza, but can also eat through many types of metal.

Laughing Cures

Laughing helps get blood flowing round the body.

A good old belly laugh can help heal leg ulcers, according to experts. The Leeds University team said good nursing and the occasional laugh was a better way to get the body healing than using the latest technology.

Hospitals and health clinics are increasingly using low-dose ultrasound for leg ulcers, but the five-year study of 337 patients found it did nothing to speed up recovery, the British Medical Journal reported.

Instead, lead researcher Professor Andrea Nelson said, "They key to care with this group of patients is to stimulate blood flow back up the legs to the heart. The best way to do that is with compression bandages and support stocking coupled with advice on diet and exercise. Believe it or not, having a really hearty chuckle can help too. This is because laughing gets the diaphragm moving and this plays a vital part in moving blood around the body."

During the study, the team concentrated on patients with hard-to-heal ulcers that had not cleared up after six months or longer. They found that adding ultrasound to the standard approach to care - dressings and compression therapy - made no difference to the speed of healing or the chance of ulcers coming back. And that's no laughing matter.