How to Reduce Stress
by Laughing More

When asked how to reduce stress, a psychiatrist recommended thirty minutes of laugh therapy each day.  The benefits of laughter have been confirmed in modern medicine as a way to reduce stress.  Laughter can lower your pulse and blood pressure, and enhance immune function.  The ability to laugh at your self is probably the most valuable thing.  Laughing at our own problems can be a way to put the matter in proper perspective. Your ability to easily laugh frequently throughout the day is a tremendous resource for how to reduce stress.

Laughter reduces the level of stress hormones like glucocordicoids, and epinephrine. It also increases the level of health-enhancing hormones like endorphins and the number of antibody-producing and white blood “T” cells.  What this really means, in plain language is that with laughter you can build a stronger immune system, and experience fewer physical effects of stress.

Ways that Laughter Heals the Body

• Laughter relaxes the whole body.  A relaxed belly laugh relieves the built-up tension and can keep your muscles relaxed for up to 45 minutes.
•  Laughter boosts the immune system.  Laughter promotes the decrease of your stress hormones and helps stimulate the creation of immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies. It is nature's way of building resistance to disease.
• Laughter helps build an overall feeling of well being by promoting the release of endorphins, the body’s feel-good chemicals.
•  Laughter is good for your cardiovascular system. Laughter strengthens the function of your blood vessels and increases the blood flow.  This is another natural way of protecting against the development of cardiovascular problems.  It also helps lower high blood pressure.
  

How to Reduce Stress: Plan Ahead

Create your own comedy collection. You can add more humor into your life by increasing the amount of things you have to laugh about. Create your own supply of humor with your own comedy collection. Include comics, funny movies, lists of jokes, humorous books, cartoons, newspaper cuttings or anything else that brings on some great belly laughs. You might find some digital examples and websites such as Youtube’s Comedy Channel. We also have a friend, Dr. Trina Hess, who helps organizations laugh their way through difficult change over at Humor Academy.com. Check her site for some great advice on the benefits of laughter.

Plan ahead when you know that you are going to have a stressful day.  A day before a stressful event, spend some time focusing on humor and laughter.  Develop the habit of enjoying selections of your your comedy collection throughout the week. Choose an item, and enjoy your reward thoroughly without inhibitions.  Forget about work and let your mind relax and take a break from the stress.

Reduce Stress Finding Humor Daily

Consider including examples of humor in your potentially stressful real-life situations.  For example, take along some comics to read while waiting at a dentist’s office.  Or, if you are giving a speech that tends to be heavy on content; include a comic strip and a few one liners to build rapport with your audience.  Adding humor to life's daily situations allows you to lower the tension levels and helps make you feel more relaxed.

In your professional life and your personal life, include humor so that you don’t take life too seriously and become overwhelmed with the many responsibilities you find yourself handling on a daily basis. The importance is to learn how to reduce stress and laugh more.

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