Monday, October 19, 2009

Laughter is Medicine

Laughter heals. Just in case I need to convince you, there is scientific evidence backing this up. The ground-breaking research on laughter was conducted by William Fry, professor emeritus in psychiatry at Stanford University. Starting in the early 1960's, Professor Fry studied the therapeutic benefits of laughter. He was able to show the immense physiological benefit that laughter provides. Fry discovered that laughter changes brain patterns, stimulates the immune system, and reduces stress hormones.

Although Professor Fry is retired from Stanford, he is still pursuing activities that make him laugh. Dr. Fry said, "that a minute of laughter is equal to ten minutes on the rowing machine." I assume he means actually rowing rather than just sitting there. So, if I row for 10 minutes and watch 30 minutes of I Love Lucy, is this equal to 310 minutes of working out? Imagine when I tell my doctor how much exercise I get!

4 comments:

  1. LOL, Wondering what a chuckle will do calorie wise?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I will be a regular reader, thanks Lucinda

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hello can we post jokes or send them to you to post and approve. Thanks
    Butch Holland
    butchholland2002@yahoo.com

    ReplyDelete
  4. I welcome all jokes and posts. I am monitoring the comments just to keep it PG-13.

    ReplyDelete