LAUGH HEARTILY
Cardiovascular health is boosted by a regular chuckle, according to US research. Cardiologists at the University of Maryland discovered that people suffering from heart disease were 40% less likely to laugh than people the same age who don’t have the condition.
“The old saying that laughter is the best medicine appears to be true when it comes to protecting your heart,” says Michael Miller, director of the Centre for Preventive Cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Centre. “Mental stress is associated with impairment of the endothelium, the protective barrier lining our blood vessels, and this can cause a series of inflammatory reactions that lead to fat and cholesterol build-up in the coronary arteries and ultimately to a heart attack.”
Miller and his team have shown that laughter positively affects the endothelium in a similar way to aerobic exercise. “We recommend 30 minutes of exercise three times a week, and 15 minutes of laughter a day!”