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Hello dear listeners! Today Dr. Trayford shares brain training tip number 145 which is quite a hoot! Seriously, this is the best form of recovery therapy you’ll ever encounter: Laughing. Doesn’t that just ring true to you? Laughter is an incredible boost for your brain. Surround yourself with humor and positivity and healing can happen. Thanks for listening!
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If you have any concerns regarding the information and applications discussed in this podcast, please consult your physician and a doctor who is experienced in functional neurology. Michael Trayford DC, DACNB is available for consultation by calling (828) 708-5274. Thanks for listening.
This is cool stuff. I just ran into an old client at a yoga class who was having certain challenges with the world and negative associations with things. I saw her and she was just ear to ear smiles. We had a conversation and there wasn’t a hint of negativity.
She told me that she was taking laughing classes! Research on the benefits of laughing for the brain has been well documented over the years. More and more people are starting to get involved in techniques to incorporate more laughing.
Individuals can practice this on their own. We need to exercise laughing just like how we need to exercise our memory or our muscles. There was a study done at the University of Loma Linda California.
The study involved a group of twenty adults. They had them watch something funny for a period of time and afterward they had their cortisol levels checked. The people that watched the funny videos showed that they had significantly decreased amounts of cortisol.
Then they tested learning and recall abilities as well. Again the tests showed significant benefits in the people who watched the funny videos.
Laughter does so much good for the brain the endorphins, dopamine and other neurotransmitters that feel good, feel rewarded and pleasure. These things are produced in very high levels as a result of laughter. It impacts so much, not just your outlook on life, your relationships with people, and your general mood; it also benefits your immune system. Which is directly related to the nervous system.
People get sick less when they laugh more. This goes back to the Patch Adams philosophy of medicine. When people get sick and they start to laugh, it leads to many benefits. White blood cell production increases, and makes it a medicine.
It should be given liberally, whether sick or not. While this falls under the category of stress management, but it really does apply to so many other categories.
Jason: Isn’t the old saying Laughter is the best medicine?
Absolutely! Laughter, exercise have medicinal value in so many ways.
In the clinic we do a lot of testing with EEG’s and neurofeedback, and other methods. The more people laugh, the more they boost their gamma brainwaves. These are the high paced brainwaves that have a strong relationship to memory recall.
So when you want to recall things, you want more gamma brainwaves. Laughing and fast eye movements will help improve how well your brain can recall a memory.
Of course, it goes without saying that you want to do this at appropriate times. You don’t want to laugh in the middle of a serious conversation, because the person might be put off by that in a social context. Simply smiling at that point, is very much physiologically the same.
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