Laughter may increase melatonin production, which regulates sleep cycles, according to research analyzing the breast milk of nursing mothers who watched a comedy film. Laughter may also reduce stress levels and have other health benefits, including pain reduction and calorie burning.
Laughter could help people sleep better because it encourages the body to produce melatonin, a hormone responsible for regulating sleep cycles, research suggests. Researchers analyzed melatonin levels in the breast milk of nursing mothers and found that there was more melatonin in the breast milk of participants who had watched a comedy film than in the breast milk of women who had watched an informative weather programme. It’s not known why laughter helps with melatonin production, but researchers believe it could be because laughter reduces stress levels.
Read more about the benefits of laughter:
The first research into the health benefits of laughter was by Norman Cousins, who suffered from ankylosing spinal cord, in 1979 when he wrote in his autobiography that he used laughter as medicine. He claimed that 10 minutes of laughter reduced his pain and helped him sleep for two hours.
Research has found that blood sugar levels were lower in diabetics who laughed after a meal than in those who didn’t.
It’s estimated that laughing 100 times burns the same number of calories as spending 15 minutes pedaling a stationary bike.
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