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Laughter is the Best Medicine

Fleur Dash • 2 August 2023

Why is laughing the best medicine?

A good laugh is always a winner isn’t it? Giggling, having a chuckle, the side splitter, hooting, guffawing and the delicate titter. These are all good ways to brighten a day. But did you know that along with it feeling wonderful it is also healing your mind, body and soul?

Laughter has been shown to reduce the levels of certain stress hormones in the body. We need a variety of chemicals to help us cope with tricky situations, but these stress signals in high levels can create an imbalance leaving us feeling anxious, angry and depressed. These stress hormones also can have a harmful effect on the immune system. When we laugh, we increase the number of beneficial hormones like endorphins, which and neurotransmitters in the body, lessening the presence and production of adrenaline and cortisol.


Endorphins work as a natural painkiller, so laughing helps to boost our pain threshold, easing mood, tension, anger and discomfort. Laughing increases neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine, helping your brain to function faster, connect and comprehend situations or problems at a speedier rate.


Laughter also boosts our immune systems, stimulating antibody cells to develop at faster rates by changing the body’s chemistry through hormonal shifts. These antibodies help us to fight off illness and infection easier. Studies have shown that “mirthful laughter” causes an initial increase in arterial blood pressure which is followed by a decrease to below the normal resting blood pressure. This improves blood pressure levels, decreases the risk of heart disease, cardiac issues and improves circulation. The act of laughing physically creates a boost of oxygen to the brain, promoting brain health and encourages a higher level of ventilation in your lungs.


Laughter is also a brilliant way of doing exercise; it engages muscles in the body’s diaphragm and abdominal as it expands and contracts and can often leave us with that side splitting feeling after a long hoot. Depending on your laughing style and how physically you throw yourself into it, you can stimulate your legs, back, shoulders, and arm muscles too. Cheeks, jaw and neck muscles are all put through their paces as we cackle and howl.


Laughter can also boost memory as it speeds the connections between the neurons, enabling learning and brain function. Combining humour with recall helps to create more links in the brain as they have more direct association and emphasis.


Laughter can help our brains to be more creative due to the lowered stress hormones and increased endorphins. We are more likely to take creative risks, think outside of the box when feeling more positive and laughter is the best way to boost our mood. Laughter has been found to have a soothing quality that reduces even unconscious pain, causing an improvement in mood and happiness. 


It is also really contagious, seeing someone else having a chuckle encourages us to join in, creating connections between people, helping us to build relationships and deepen rapport.


I love using laughter in my practice room. When we are laughing, we are no longer able to feel sadness or pain.  Book a free DISCOVERY CALL to try this out for yourself!

I will encourage you to:

🌈Allow yourself to concentrate on all the best parts of yourself. 

🌈Think about all you have achieved

🌈Believe in your abilities 

🌈Trust in yourself

You are the expert in being you!


In my sessions we like to have a bit of a giggle as we explore these wonderful qualities that make up all of us as individuals. 

Find your own answers and give yourself the gift of health and  happiness.


www.lovemymind.co.uk


by Fleur Dash 27 February 2025
Are you struggling to sleep? Find out why, and how you can find solutions to sleep being your friend again. 10 Top tips for glorious sleep. Bed, what a heavenly place! But really should only be entered when tired. It should be a no screens area, a sanctuary for us when we are ready to sleep or read. We shouldn’t hang out in bed watching programs or checking social media as “blue screens” really affect how our brains work, and do not make us feel restful and relaxed, but alert and active. Be reassured by having an alarm set if you need one, so you don’t need to check the time during the night. Having an air vent or window open, fresh air and a cooler temperature will improve your sleep quality. If your head starts to swirl with thoughts, jot them on a piece of paper, knowing you can deal with them tomorrow. I like to go to sleep after writing down tomorrows to-do list, what I have achieved today, and writing down anything I feel grateful for. This routine gets my head in a happy but empty place ready for oblivion. Give yourself between 6 and 9 hours to sleep, adults all need around this amount to function. Any more or less can really start to alter how we feel in our daily lives. It is also important to try and wake up at the same time every day. While it may seem like a good idea to try to catch up on sleep after a bad night, doing so on a regular basis can also disrupt your sleep routine. It is better to take small cat naps of 20 mins during the day, if your sleep is disturbed and you feel exhausted. If you wake in the night and can’t go back to sleep, get up, make a drink, read a book. Don’t lie there worrying about not sleeping. Insomnia can become quite obsessive. As we lie there panicking about missing sleep, we are adding to the problem and creating more stress. It is always better to distract your head with a different activity (that doesn’t have a screen) and allow ourselves to become sleepy again. We sleep in cycles during the night, experiencing rest sleep and dream (REM) sleep. Some of the sleep we have is deep, and some is more shallow. It isn’t a disaster if we wake up and go back to sleep as the quality of sleep is varied anyway. Dream sleep is important for our brains, as we use REM sleep to process the actions of our day. It is when we decide what has been important to store in our libraries, and what we can throw away. If we have too much going on in our lives we have too much to process in one night. Our brains feel overloaded and can wake us (usually around 4am for me!). This is a sign that we have too much stress in our lives, and need to find ways to reduce our anxieties. Our bodies can feel encouraged to sleep too much to empty our stress using dreams, but this will leave us feeling exhausted, and wanting to sleep even more. This is why it is important to stick to 7-9 hours of sleep a night. If your head is full of noise at bedtime, try listening to a calming meditation, or some tranquil sounds like rain or the ocean. Choosing what we think about is an important factor of how stressful our lives can become. Making a choice not to dwell on the thoughts that are still churning round is a great way to train our brains to be quieter. Choosing our thoughts is empowering and a deeply effective way of improving our mental well being.
by Fleur Dash 16 December 2024
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by Fleur Dash 26 August 2024
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