{"id":107523,"date":"2014-05-06T19:17:55","date_gmt":"2014-05-06T16:17:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/?p=107523"},"modified":"2023-04-02T16:14:33","modified_gmt":"2023-04-02T13:14:33","slug":"laughing-puts-the-brain-in-a-meditative-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2014\/05\/06\/laughing-puts-the-brain-in-a-meditative-state\/","title":{"rendered":"Laughing puts the brain in a meditative state"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Buddha\"<\/a><\/p>\n

According to mind unleashed laughing could dramatically improve your health \u2013 and be as good for you as a deep state of\u00a0meditation, researchers\u00a0have found.<\/p>\n

Studying the effects of the stress hormone cortisol on the brain, the researchers of the Loma Linda University in the U.S. decided to investigate whether laughter could affect its destructive impact on the body.<\/p>\n

They found that laughter reduces the negative effects of cortisol and could be used as a therapy, offering a pleasant solution to the patients with hypertension, diabetes or heart problems.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings are simple: the less stress one has, the better his memory is,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0says Dr. Lee Berk, who took part in the study.\u201cHumor reduces the destructive action of hormones associated with stress such as cortisol, which acts on hippocampal neurons responsible for memory function, and reduces the levels of blood pressure, thus improving our mood\u201d<\/em>\u00a0explains the researcher.<\/p>\n

\u201cLaughter stimulates the release of endorphins and dopamine in the brain, giving us a sense of satisfaction and reward. These beneficial neurochemical changes, in turn, make the immune system work better,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0says Dr. Berk<\/p>\n

As shown by the results of the study, laughter causes changes in the\u00a0brain waves, specifically, gamma waves, which seems to boost memory retrieval processes.<\/p>\n

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<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cLaughter leads to the production of brainwave frequencies similar to those observed in people in a meditative state,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0adds Dr. Berk.<\/p>\n

As part of their study, the scientists showed funny videos lasting 20 minutes to a group of healthy elderly people and a group of elderly diabetic patients. Then they asked the volunteers to complete a questionnaire to assess their skills towards learning, memory retrieval and visual recognition. Finally, the results were compared to those of a control group who had the same age but did not watch the videos.<\/p>\n

The researchers went on to measure the levels of cortisol both at the beginning and at the end of the experiment. As a result, they detected a significant reduction in levels of the stress hormone in both groups who had watched the videos and showed improvement in the ability to recall their memories compared to the control group.<\/p>\n

Specifically, the largest decline in the levels of cortisol was detected in the case of the group of patients with diabetes, while the members of the group of healthy volunteers showed the highest score in the memory test.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe findings of our study provide potential clinical benefits that could find application in particular in the case of older people,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0says study author\u00a0Dr. Gurinder Singh\u00a0Bains.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite the fact that elderly people experience memory problems related to their advanced age, pleasant complementary humor therapy could further help these patients,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0concludes the expert.<\/p>\n

ABOUT THE AUTHOR<\/h3>\n

Anna LeMind of\u00a0www.learning-mind.com\u00a0– Staff Writer For\u00a0The Mind Unleashed<\/p>\n

Hi, I like learning new things and sharing my knowledge with others! I post science, psychology, self improvement and other related topics. Add me to your\u00a0circles on Google Plus\u00a0or\u00a0follow me on\u00a0Twitter\u00a0to\u00a0stay updated on my new articles.<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk<\/p>\n

Time Magazine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to mind unleashed laughing could dramatically improve your health \u2013 and be as good for you as a deep state of\u00a0meditation, researchers\u00a0have found. Studying the effects of the stress hormone cortisol on the brain, the researchers of the Loma Linda University in the U.S. decided to investigate whether laughter could affect its destructive impact […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":107524,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2939,845],"tags":[270,4183,9449,9448],"class_list":["post-107523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cultureart","category-scitech","tag-deep-state","tag-health","tag-loma-linda-university","tag-meditative-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}