Laughter Is The Best Medicine – For More Joy Less Stress!

Shirley Noah Leave a comment

What Could You Do for Your Health Without Spending Money?

Laughter is the Best Medicine
Laughter is the Best Medicine

What if you had more joy, less stress and there is a way that would have a huge impact on your mental and physical health that you could do without spending any money – and have fun doing it?

Would you be interested?

Here are a few hints:

  • You can do it alone, but it is definitely more fun doing it with others.
  • It’s not usually done in our culture.
  • It’s something we used to do as a kid but probably don’t do it much now.

Any guesses?

It’s Laughter IS The Best Medicine!!

Decades of research on laughter have shown numerous benefits, including:

  • Reduction of stress hormones
  • Improved immune function
  • Reduction of pain
  • Decreased depression and anxiety
  • Improved cardiovascular health

“Health is a large word. It embraces not the body only, but the mind and spirit as well; and not today’s pain or pleasure alone, but the whole being and outlook of a man.” ~ James H. West Click To Tweet ~ James H. West

I believe that laughter is right up there with sleep, exercise, and other forms of stress management as one of the most effective ways we can improve our health and extend our life.  One example that comes to mind is Norman Cousins book Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient:  Reflections on Healing and Regeneration.  Cousins’s influential work Read More

Your Productivity May Suffer by Losing THIS Much Sleep!

Shirley Noah Leave a comment

How Important Is A Good Night’s Sleep and Your Productivity?

Everything, including your stress response and hormones that control your appetite and regulate your mood are connected to adequate sleep.  What’s more every minute counts according to a new study published by Sleep health (Journal of National Sleep Foundation).  This study exposed the fact that just 16 minutes of sleep can negatively affect your productivity.

Sleep for Productivity
Sleep for Productivity

Soomi Lee, PhD. Assistant professor in the School of Aging Studies, and her colleagues, found that when 130 mid-aged participants slept just 16 fewer minutes, resulted in less effective cognitive issues the next day.   “These cyclical associations reflect that employees’ sleep is vulnerable to daily cognitive stress and also a contributor to cognitively stressful experiences,” said Lee.

Shorter sleep duration, or poorer sleep quality, experienced more cognitive challenges. Findings from this study provide substantial evidence for why workplaces need to make more efforts to promote their employees’ sleep. Good sleepers may be better performers at work due to greater ability to stay focused and on task with fewer errors and interpersonal conflicts.

Are Enough Sleep and Regular Bedtimes Necessary?

This study clearly demonstrates that getting enough sleep and regular bedtimes is essential to having a healthy life style.   Those people with irregular bedtimes, tend to have worse cardiovascular health and a slower metabolism, than those who have a consistent bedtime.

In conclusion, if you are frequently tired, have gained a little weight and experience brain fog are potentially sleep deprived. In addition, if your emotions are out of control, you catch yourself nodding off during the day and experience frequent bouts of illness, sleep could be the culprit.

Our modern life-style may contribute to a disrupted sleep pattern that can impact your health.  Your circadian clock controls your daily cycle of sleep and wakefulness by inhibiting and exciting different parts of your brain.  An irregular sleep pattern could be causing stress to your body.

“Sleep is an investment in the energy you need to be effective tomorrow.” Tom Roth Click To Tweet

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What is Your Stress Level?

Shirley Noah Leave a comment
What is Your Stress Level?
Stress Level

How Can You Measure Your Stress Level?

How often do you practice the power of appreciation and an “attitude of gratitude” throughout the day?

Do you practice a stress management method, meditation, etc?

When do you feel “stressed out”?

Stress is your response to unusual demands made on you.  You can respond positively or negatively, which is distress.  Because the  effects of your stress level depends on your response to the demands, you may often be your own worst enemy.

Stress causes the hormones in your hypothalamus (part of your brain stem) to be secreted.  As a result, this causes the pituitary gland to stimulate the production of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH).  ACTH travels through the blood stream from the pituitary gland to the adrenal gland.  Then the adrenal gland stimulates the release of cortisol.  This is where it gets ugly, cortisol activates your brain’s reward center and increases levels of insulin in the blood stream. This in turn stimulates the desire for high-fat high-sugar foods.  Here’s where it begins to affect your health and well-being, so let’s look at what we can do to take action and avoid further damage.

Here are Ten Simple Ways to Lower Your Stress Level:

 

1.  Ask for help.  It’s OK for you to ask family and friends to help you out.  You do not get a Super Man award for trying to do it all.  In fact, you may be so overwhelmed that staying committed to your healthy lifestyle is much harder than when you have others to help you along the way.

2.  Keep exercising. Exercising can be tough when you feel as though you are being pulled in a thousand different directions.  As you are aware, exercise is a big stress reliever.  Even if you can’t keep up with your normal exercise routine, go for a quick walk or stair climbing.

How to Measure Your Stress Level and 10 Ways to Reduce Stress ~ ShirleyJNoah” Click To Tweet

3.  Trust.  In Stephen Covey’s book Speed of Trust, he says people must be able to trust before they feel it. Why trust? The simple, often overlooked fact is this: work gets done with and through people. This book offers an unprecedented and eminently practical look at exactly how trust functions in every transaction and every relationship—from the most personal to the broadest, most indirect interaction. When your trust you rest well.  Sleep and rest help us recharge our batteries.  This is when our body does repair work we need so much.

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