LAUGH Your Way To A LONGER Life!

Introduction to Laughter as Medicine 0:00

I mean, you think about food addiction, you think about, you know, just different things that we do based on stress. And laughter is going to decrease stress. Look at it as something that needs to be on your list. Look at it. Look at it like healthy food. Positive movement. Sleep. Paying taxes. You know, whatever. Whatever else is on your list of what you have to do. Add laughter to that. Being healthy. Being full of vitality. Having good relationships. It's not just one thing. It's not just one thing that gets you to a bad place.

And it's not just one thing that gets you to a good place. Laughter is medicine. You know, the Bible says a merry heart is good medicine. You know, we've heard laughter is the best medicine. Welcome to Doctor Talks, the podcast where every episode leads to a healthier you. Join us as we navigate the world of optimal health. Uncovering groundbreaking strategies to conquer chronic disease. In each episode, we'll bring you the latest insights from leading health experts, medical innovators, and wellness warriors.

If you're seeking to transform your health journey, or if you're looking for answers to burning questions, you've come to the right place. Get ready to unlock the secrets of lifelong health and vitality. This is Doctor Talks, real talk from real doctors on the issues that matter to you most. Welcome to Vitality Made Simple. This is the podcast that equips you to feel better, look better, and to enjoy better relationships. You know, relationships either make us or break us. And today, I want to talk about something that you're going to love.

I'm going to talk about the profound yet underestimated power of laughter. Laughter on the immune system. Laughter on heart health. I'm going to. We're going to dig into the research, folks. This was like a tunnel. I jumped into, and it was like spelunking. I've been stuck. We've been spelunking through with Boy Scouts.

Doctor Talks and Vitality Made Simple Intro 1:58

And you, you see one place and you see another place. Ooh, that looks interesting. That looks interesting. And pretty soon you're really far down into the cave. And that's how it was with their research on laughter. Oh my goodness. This is a free supplement. Think of laughter as a supplement. And you probably spend a lot of money on supplements. You know, we do. We want to be our very healthiest. We want to feel great. And laughter is actually a very good thing to look at as, and an increase in a way to increase your health span, a way to feel better.

Now, it takes a lot of intention, because in our world now, there are a lot of sad things. And I want to acknowledge that it doesn't necessarily change our circumstances, but it can help our immune systems and it helps can help how we look at life. Now I'm going to give you some research backed, reasons that you need to incorporate more laughter. So so I'm also going to, put all of the research on my research tab on my website so you can go there and see all of the free research and all kinds of theories, but I'm adding a laughter tag tab because of what I found, for today's podcast.

Researching Laughter and Immune Benefits 3:08

Now laughter actually boost your immune system. Boost natural killer cells. Natural killer cells are essential for, tumor control. They. They kill viruses and bacteria, natural killer cells and decrease as we get older. Lots of other things can kill natural killer cells. You know, I love to talk about fuze, a bacterium. Nuclear autumn, that oral pathogen that moves to other parts of the body. It's that it's that bacteria that I call the mother in law. And so in my spelunking for this, researching this podcast, I found that fuze, a bacterium, nuclear atom from the mouth, mostly got an actually decreases natural killer cells.

So here's a way to increase natural killer cells. Laughter also increases what's called immunoglobulin A IGA. IGA is something that, it's the amino globulin in the saliva. And so laughing the simple thing of finding fun is going to increase immunoglobulin A. It's a natural defense against viruses both respiratory and oral bacteria. It's just the first line of defense in your body. So you want to have good IGA. It also increases IgG another amino immunoglobulin in the gut. Now think about how stress causes dry mouth.

Whenever you're stressed, you know your mouth goes dry. If you're running from a tiger all day long, you're going to have a dry mouth. Or if you're taking a whole lot of meds that, you know, 70, 80% of medications dry out the mouth, too. So that's going to decrease IGA. You want to, increase IGA with laughter. Also, laughter increases T-cells. Now T-cells are essential for what's called adaptive immunity. Adaptive immunity helps us adapt to our environment, just like it says. It helps us to have defense against things that attack us, in daily life.

So, number one, we know that a laughter boost our immune systems. Well, number two, it enhances heart health in so many ways. Laughter improves blood flow because it's it's like it's like a mini workout, you know. Have you ever been to like a comedy show. And the next day your stomach's just sore like it's been an ab workout? We went to one recently with Tim Hawkins, and literally the next day I felt like I had done, you know, 500 crunches. It was such it was so much fun. It improves blood flow.

And I even wonder, you know, recently I, interviewed Doctor Nathan Bryant. Brian, who is, world expert in nitric oxide. Nitric oxide, increases, the diameter of blood vessels.

Heart Health and Neurochemical Effects 6:00

And I, I wonder if if laughter in some way may promote nitric oxide. I want to talk to Doctor Brian about that. And I want to volunteer for that study if he wants to study that, but, nitric but, you know, nitric oxide is essential and it makes a lot of sense also, Laughter. You know, increases heart rate. So that's going to improve circulation. It also supports lymphatic movement and lymphatic flow. You know, your heartbeat, your heart's a muscle and it's beating and pushing blood through automatically.

But with lymphatic flow, that has to be intentional. You have to do things to, increase lymphatic flow. And exercise is one of the things that does that. But also laughter does that. So we know that it boosts immunity. We know it enhances, heart health. Also, laughter triggers the release of positive neurochemicals. Now, these are things like endorphins. Endorphins are the good mood, the feel good chemicals and, laughter has been shown in scientific studies to increase endorphins. You're going to feel better with endorphins.

But endorphins also are natural pain killers. So. So if you're experiencing any kind of chronic pain, finding ways to laugh is a wonderful health strategy. Pretty amazing. Laughter also increases the release of neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin. You know, many, antidepressants are serotonin reuptake inhibitors, so you can produce more dopamine and serotonin naturally when you look for ways to laugh. So we have that it, boost immune system, enhances heart health, triggers the release of natural neurochemicals.

And, it also reduces stress hormones. So not only does it increase some good things, it also reduces like cortisol which is a stress hormone. Cortisol is not bad in little short bursts. You know, we're designed for some stress. We're designed to boom, get away from the tiger, get safe. But we're not designed to run from the tiger all day. Whenever this cortisol is chronically, high, then that's going to suppress your immune system. So think high cortisol all day low immune system. So laughter has been shown in research studies to actually decrease cortisol.

And when it decreases cortisol it decreases these pro-inflammatory cytokines. You hear heard a lot about interleukin six in the recent years. And it reduces interleukin six. Now all of this is going to improve your sleep. So that's pretty well when you reduce stress reduce cortisol you're going to have better sleep. So here we are with four things I've got boost immune system enhances heart health, triggers the release of neuro positive neurochemical, reduces stress hormones. And finally it strengthens relationships.

Oh my goodness. We're back to relationships. I would consider laughter to sort of be social glue. I mean, think about the times that you've laughed with people.

Stress Reduction and Better Sleep 9:20

You've just had a belly laugh. Something funny has happened. You've seen something funny, or you both are thinking the same things and burst out laughing. You know, it's a natural mood. Elevator in laughter is very, very contagious. I've found in studies that it actually increases emotional well-being and, increases resilience, natural resilience. And I think about, funny times in my dental practice when I had my regular clinical practice, I would see people continuously. There was a little boy named Matthew, and I watched him grow up, and he would just say the most hilarious things.

I used to wear those big long loops, you know, that when I did restorative care to magnify everything really, really large. And, one day, Matthew looked at me and he said, I know why you wear those glasses. And and and I said, oh, why? And he said, because they make you look smart. And I was like, oh, right. Matthew, you're you're exactly right. I need all the help I can get in that category. So I don't have glasses on today, but I probably do need, need to. Laughter is so, so important in life.

We can all we can naturally take life really too seriously. Now the laughter that's been studied in these research papers is called mirthful laughter. It's not it's not the polite chuckle or the, you know, nervous chuckle that, that you hear people do kind of as habits. No, it's that physiological response that, that you can't really control that really changes what's happening in your body. It increases oxygen. It makes your muscles relax. It increases your heart rate. You know, there are physiological changes that can be measured with real, laughter.

I, I think about, Mary, the movie Mary Poppins with Uncle Albert. You know, I wish I could see you all know who remembers Uncle Albert, who was. You know, I love to laugh. Ha ha ha ha. And I remember as a little kid seeing that movie, we didn't see that many movies, but that's one of my very favorite scenes, because he's. I guess it had some happy days or something. He's floating up on the ceiling and he's just laughing so hard. And, you know, he, he says, you know, the more he laughs, you know, the more he's filled with glee and the more the glee, the more the merrier. Me.

And it's getting worse every year. That's exactly how I feel. As as I've gotten older, I really look for more things to laugh about.

Laughter, Relationships, and Daily Joy 12:00

I think I'm getting more silly. Silly? If you see my Instagram, you might agree with that. But it's oh, there's also a time to be serious. But we, we we often just forget to laugh. Your children laugh. They say the average four year old laughs, 300 times a day. But the average of 40 year old laughs four times a day. Well, how you know, I'm 66. I mean, I don't want to be like the average, you know, we don't want to be normal. Oh, I think I should throw this in here. Remember, normal in our world is not what you want to be.

Normal is typical of what's going on in society at any time. And so many people have forgotten how to have fun. Count your blessings. Look for the funny thing you know normal in our society is dehydrated, irritated, constipated, frustrated, overscheduled, overstimulated, undernourished, under rested, inflamed, and totally stressed out. Normal is probably forgetting to laugh. It's probably forgetting to find things to chuckle about. Adults just forget. And I don't think it's really, dependent on circumstances.

I think it has to be very, very intentional. So, it doesn't change our circumstances. It doesn't it doesn't change what's happening in the world. But we can make a choice to laugh. And I would invite you to go to my website. There's a lot of free resources there. One of the things is my research tab, and, and I've got that laughter tab now as I mentioned earlier. So challenge yourself, make it a priority, make it a priority. You know, it's going to decrease stress in your life. It's going to make all of your other, health strategies easier.

I mean, you think about food addiction, you think about, you know, just different things that we do based on stress and laughter is going to decrease stress. Look at it as something that needs to be on your list. Look at it. Look at it like healthy food, positive movement, sleep, paying taxes, you know, whatever, whatever else is on your list of what you have to do. Add laughter to that. Being healthy, being full of vitality, having good relationships. It's not just one thing. It's not just one thing that gets you to a bad place.

And it's not just one thing that gets you to a good place. Laughter is medicine. You know, the Bible says a merry heart is good medicine. Left. You know, we've heard laughter is the best medicine. It is a big deal, folks. Take me seriously on this, please. So also go to my website. I have my first course launched. It's called Upstream Get Health. I think I'm going to add a little module about laughter and how that helps you get health, because there's a lot more information that you're probably going to want to know. And,

Closing Thoughts and Podcast Outro 15:00

but when you buy the course, you get all the modules that I add. So I've got tons of ideas of things to add. I want you to feel good. I want us to enjoy life together. I want you to enjoy your relationships. And I don't want it to be stressful. I want it to be as fun as possible. This is live, folks. Life is short. We are all passing through. We want to feel our best, but we don't want to be stressed out trying to feel our best. Thank you for joining me. For vitality made. Simple blessings. Until next time, thank you for tuning in to Doctor Talks.

We hope today's episode has enlightened and inspired you on your path to optimal health. Each day is a new opportunity to make choices that empower your well-being. For more insights and strategies, subscribe to our podcast and visit our website WW Dot doctor Talksport.com. Stay connected, stay healthy and join us next time on Doctor Talks. Real talks from real doctors on the issues that matter to you most.