Dr. Gita Suraj Narayan, a Senior Lecturer at the School of Social Work and Community Development, University of Kwazulu-Natal (and a Certified Laughter Yoga Teacher!) recently proved that Laughter is a powerful form of complementary Medicine through her research and a series of Community Outreach Projects.
America Medical Journal and AATH
Ten minutes of laughter drops 10-20mm in blood pressure.
Duke University – Dr. Wei Jiang
At a meeting of the American College of Cardiology, Dr. Wei Jiang of Duke University reported on how mood affected health. In a study of over 1,000 heart patients, Dr. Jiang discovered patients with mild depression had nearly twice the risk of death by heart failure than those with a more cheerful disposition.
Lee Berk, DrPH, MPH, a preventive care specialist and psychoneuroimmunologist, of Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, CA, has paired with Stanley Tan, MD, PhD an endocrinologist and diabetes specialist at Oak Crest Health Research Institute, Loma Linda, CA, to examine the effect of “mirthful laughter” on individuals with diabetes. Diabetes is a metabolic syndrome characterized by the risk of heart attack, blindness and other neurological, immune and blood vessel complications. They found that mirthful laughter, as a preventive adjunct therapy in diabetes care, raised good cholesterol and lowered inflammation.
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The following list was compiled by Don L. F. Nilsen, English Department, Arizona State University Tempe, AZ. You will find more research articles still at http://www.BioMedSearch.com
University and Journal Based Research on the Effects of Laughter:
American College of Cardiology
Laughter stimulates the brain’s reward center which releases dopamine and then stimulates the frontal lobe and enhances thinking.
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Using Icy Waters, Researchers Replicated Pain from Medical Procedures. Laughter Helped.
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In an observational study of 200 healthy normotensive IT call- center workers in Mumbai, India, 20-minute laugh-yoga sessions were associated with significant reductions in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure, Madan Kataria, M.D., reported at the American Society of Hypertension meeting.
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Breastfed babies with eczema experienced milder symptoms if their mothers laughed hours before feeding them, according to a study by Hajime Kimata at the Moriguchi-Keijinkai Hospital in Osaka, Japan.
Researchers at NTNU and St. Olav’s Hospital in Norway have found the first evidence in history that proves that a sense of humour reduces mortality. In January in a particular year, all patients with chronic kidney failure in Sør-Trøndelag County were invited to participate in the study. The patients were very ill and had to receive dialysis at least once a week, some every day, to purify the blood for substances that the kidneys would normally filter out into the urine. Without the dialysis, they would die. Approximately 80 per cent of these patients provided answers to questions regarding their age, gender, education, quality of life, and sense of humour.
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