Laughing Out Loud For Better Health
I don’t know about you but this has been one very long and seemingly unending week! No matter your political persuasion, stress levels have been quite high. But the good news as I recently told the New York Times, is that laughter counteracts the adverse effects of stress on your heart and overall health.
My interest in the science of laughter dates back to the 1990s. While it was known that emotional stress could adversely affect your heart and blood vessels, no studies had examined whether positive emotions would have an opposing effect. To investigate this question, we first examined how men and women responded to certain situations in daily life. For example, if you were at a (pre-COVID) party and someone was wearing the same outfit, how would you respond? As it turned out, those with heart related issues were ~40% less likely to find this situation (and a bunch of others) amusing compared to healthy volunteers. Of course, these results do not prove cause and effect. In other words, were those predisposed to poor heart health be less likely to find humorous situations to be funny or did comical situations become less comical after a cardiac event occurred. We then conducted a more direct test by examining blood vessels in response to emotions. Experiment after experiment showed that blood vessels contracted in response to a movie that produced emotional stress whereas blood vessels expanded in response to watching a movie that produced laughter. The chemical that causes blood vessels to dilate in response to laughter is nitric oxide- a heart protective chemical that lowers blood pressure, reduces blood clots, lowers inflammation and inhibits cholesterol plaque buildup in arteries.
Click on the following 3 links for a good laugh (and to release nitric oxide)!
Michael Miller, MD is Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland USA. For a lot more information on improving your heart health, check out his latest book: “Heal Your Heart: The Positive Emotions Prescription to Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease“ published by Penguin Random House.
Michael Miller, MD
MASPC, FACC, FAHA, FNLA
Dr. Miller is a leading cardiologist and heart health expert whose pioneering research on positive emotions, diet, and physical activity supports the integration of all three modalities for optimal vascular health.