She who laughs…
lasts.
I imagine that the link between laughter and health is no surprise. After all, that deep in your belly, can’t stop it hurts, tears rolling down your face laughter may actually go a lot further than a moment of sheer bliss.
This past weekend, I spent time with friends and family members with whom I can share a good laugh. I can’t tell you how healing and inspiring that was, so much so that I wanted to resurrect and share a post I wrote a few years back…
Several years ago, researchers discovered that humor therapy and anticipation of laughing or being amused (also known as mirthful laughter) positively affects immunity. In fact, findings from a series of five separate studies among healthy men demonstrated that just anticipating watching a funny video could increase beta-endorphins (hormones that elevated mood) as much as 17% and human growth hormone (which contributes to more optimal immunity) by as much as 87%. Elevated hormones levels were maintained throughout the video and as long as 12 hours after. Conversely, hormone levels did not increase in men who who did not anticipate watching a humorous video and instead, browsed magazines.
Similar results were seen in another study among healthy adult women; this time mirthful laughter was associated with significant declines in stress hormones and improvements in natural killer cells, which contribute favourably to immune function.
More recently, researchers have been examining the effects of mirthful laughter on actual disease states. Findings of a year-long study presented at the Experimental Biology Conference in 2009 suggest that watching a funny, 30-minute video on a daily basis may impart a long lasting impact on health that includes:
- Lower stress hormones (epinephrine and norepinephrine) and related stress levels
- Lower levels of inflammation that can contribute to disease
- Significant improvements in HDL cholesterol
- Significant reductions in harmful C-reactive protein levels (a protein that increase the risk for heart disease, heart attack, stroke and death)
This particular study evaluated laughter in patients with diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol who were also taking medication. Notably, similar positive outcomes were not seen in patients who did not have the benefit of watching the funny video.
Simulation laughter also appears to work wonders.
In case you are wondering what I’m referring to, simulated laughter is the foundation of laughter yoga, a worldwide movement that focuses on laughter exercises, including:
- Pantomime followed by laughter
- Physical greetings followed by laughter
- Dancing and singing (and laughing exercises)
- Laughing alone
- Laughing meditations
Simulated laughter works in large groups, in pairs and can be playful or exaggerated. The theory underlying simulated laughter is that while the mind can distinguish between spontaneous and simulated laughter, the body cannot. Importantly, research bears this out, and a number of scientifically controlled studies have shown that simulated laughter can lead to reductions in blood pressure, improvements in stress hormone levels, positively affect depression and insomnia and even improve anxiety in chronic pain patients. Regular simulated laughter sessions can be used as effective coping strategies and benefit workplace morale. Even smiling can yield positive effect.
Can anyone do it? Well, clearly, anyone can laugh. But simulated laughter is a technique that is most effective when it’s learned, practiced and developed. Not surprisingly, laughter yoga clubs have popped up across the nation, touting messages of helping people gain a happiness advantage. And data provide sufficient evidence that ‘laughter has positive, quantifiable physiological and psychological effects on certain aspects of health.”
What can we take away from this work and what does it have to do with menopause? Actually, I’d like to ask, what doesn’t it have to do with menopause and midlife?
During the transition, women are subject to hormonal stressors that affect mood, functioning, wellbeing as well as disease risk. If there are simpler, more natural ways to improve healthy states, for example, by daily laughter, shouldn’t we reach for them? I’d rather take a dose of funny over pharma any given day.
Here’s my gift to you: laugh today. And tomorrow. And the next day. And spread the joy. Nothing like a deep belly laugh to take some of life’s challenges away.
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Falling into the traps of masculine invulnerability – Guest post by Bob LeDrew
I’ve been trying to recruit the guys to guest post on Flashfree ever since I started this blog. And my pleas have fallen on deaf ears, save for one or two brave souls. Speaking of brave souls, I am truly blessed to call fellow writer Bob Le Drew a friend. Not only is he extremely talented, but, his self awareness and ability to overcome the trappings of masculinity appear to have paid off. He has a few insights for the men in your lives that you might wish to share and, you may learn a thing or two as well. I did!
Show some love…
I don’t like restaurant bathrooms with red walls. Once you’ve had bladder cancer, you tend to look closely at your urine stream, and those red walls give it a rosy hue that normally signifies nothing good.
I discovered something about myself seven years ago, when I first saw blood in my urine. I went to my clinic immediately, where my nurse practitioner saw me and recommended urinalysis. The first round didn’t find anything. But when it recurred a few weeks later, we found findings concerning enough to go further, and I was a new citizen of Cancerland.
But I’m not, apparently, your typical male.There’s a significant body of research that shows men are less likely to seek out help for physical and psychological problems than are women. That can lead to serious consequences — as serious as death, when heart attack symptoms are ignored until the infarction is catastrophic.
So what’s WRONG with us, guys? I’ve got a couple of theories.
#1: When men are young, we’re invulnerable. I was somewhat immunized by that by losing a brother when I was 13 and he was 19. But in general, our attitude as teenagers and in our twenties is “What could happen to us?” unless we or someone we love are diagnosed with something serious. In my case, my dad had been diagnosed with bladder cancer a number of years before mine showed up (he went on to have five primary cancers and live with them for 20 years before dying just short of his 87th birthday). His experience, and his sharing of information with me, made me realize that I couldn’t just pass off the bloody pee as “nothing.”
#2: We cling to our youth and our invulnerability. When I ride my bike, I still want to push my body as hard as I can, and even though I don’t train as hard as I used to, my decreased ability to climb steep hills with speed and grace is an ongoing frustration. Same thing with staying up late and eating poorly. The lessons we teach ourselves in youth are hard to unlearn.
#3: Part of our self-esteem and self-worth is tied to not seeking help. In Stephen King’s novel Bag of Bones, hero Mike Noonan says he’s the kind of guy who’d drown silently rather than call out for help. Isn’t that true of so many of us as men?
Several years after my cancer experience, I found myself facing a serious depression. I denied that things were not going well for me psychologically. I didn’t seek help. Why would I, when “everything was fine.” And I continued to deny the reality of my depression until I hit a painful, damaging, and nasty wall. Our love for physical invulnerability is only matched by our firm belief that admitting we’re not coping well is the LAST thing a man should do.
The temptation to ignore or deny symptoms of depression or stress is one I continue to struggle with.
And of course, none of this addresses the issue of access to services. I live in Canada, and have ready access to free medical care, as well as group insurance that subsidizes the cost of dental, psychological, and other types of medical services. I can only guess that having to pay for medical services in tough economic times would make men even more likely to “tough it out” and save scarce resources for “more important” things.
I was lucky. Twice. My bladder cancer was “superficial” — a good thing. With some minor surgical fixes, I have been physically healthy for the last several years. And thanks to talk therapy, a supportive partner, treatment, and medication, I am able to manage my mental health pretty well.
So if you, like me, are closer to retirement age than high-school graduation, don’t fall victim to the traps of masculine invulnerability. Your body, your mind — and your loved ones — will thank you for it.
About Bob LeDrew
Bob LeDrew is principal consultant at Translucid Communications in Ottawa (Ontario, not Kansas). He’s been doing communications in one form or another since 1987, and in addition to his consulting work, teaches regularly at Algonquin College and Eliquo Training and Development. He’s also the creator of The Kingcast, a podcast dedicated to his favorite writer, Stephen King. He enjoys cycling, animation, whisky, and playing guitar. He usually only does a maximum of two of those at one time.
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Wednesday Bubble: Seize the moment. Seize a cupcake!
There is a Twitter feed entitled “Cupcake Quotes.” I thought that the following would be a great introduction for this post:
“Don’t wait for extraordinary moments. Seize the moment with cupcakes!”
What moment might I be talking about?
The moment when desires stirs deeply in your loins and there’s nothing there to satisfy but a…
CUPCAKE!
Oh, I’m not referring to the frosted handful of wondrous, creamy icing and moist cake, but to Designer Shiri Zinn’s Cupcake, “the adorable, mighty and oh, so sweet cupcake vibrator.”
WHAT?!
Yes, a cupcake vibrator for those times when you crave a sweet of the carnal variety, when you want to pop the cherry that “packs a punch,” when you desire delicious sensations that resonate ‘sweets for the sweet’ or when you simply want to soar…
Right. A cupcake, the nifty ‘pretty in pink and pokadots” vibrator that sits right in the palm of your hand, offers five speed variations and can innocently pass inspection during your next flight.
So, now that I’ve taken the mick, so to speak, let me tell you want I really think:
This one’s a huge dud. I took the cupcake for a test drive and let me tell you, it’s one of the worst designs ever and the cherry, while delivering the goods, just doesn’t make me want to repeat the experience…ever. This clitoral stimulation device is only appealing on one level: it’s a great gag gift (although it’s $48 price tag might leave you with a sour aftertaste) or a moment of fun for a girls night out. Otherwise? Save your money and check out BloomEnjoyYourself.com for their full line of high-end toys to get you where you want to go. The site is also a good source of curated, vetted information on sexual health and adds some fun information in its Daily Bloom.
Word to the wise dear readers: the next time you are ready to carpe diem, find your passion, have your cake and eat it too, well, I recommend that you reach for the real deal and save the cupcake for sweet afterthoughts.
[Disclosure: Bloom Enjoy Yourself contacted me to ascertain my interest in testing out Shiri Zinn’s Cupcake. I was not paid for an endorsement nor was the blog post provided to them ahead of publication for vetting or review.]
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Who put the men in menopause? Men!
Who put the ‘men’ in menopause?
Would you believe men?!!!
You must think I am bordering on insanity. But new evolutionary research (published in the June issue of PLOS Computational Biology) posits that cause of menopause is men. You read that correctly; men.
Various explanations have been proposed to explain why menopause, occurs, e.g. the grandmother theory, which assumes that as women enter their post-reproductive lives, they are better able to care for their offspring’s children or the evolutionary tradeoff hypothesis, which suggests that menopause is a tradeoff between future production of females and enhanced offspring survival.But what about the concept of mating and ‘mate choice?’
Mind you, I am venturing into geeky science territory here but briefly, researchers created a computer model and simulation and found the following:
A lack of reproduction has led to menopause.
That is, over time, human males started to display a preference for younger women in selecting their mates and in turn, “stacked the Dawinian deck” against continued reproductive abilities in older women. In other words, natural selection; only this time, it’s gender over nature plus nature over nature. The researchers say that their model not only shows that men had a shift towards preferring younger females, but that certain female-specific mutations led to detrimental effects on female fertility – effects such as an increase in certain hormones and the cessation of ovulation altogether.
The researchers say that infertility in women has not evolved but rather “over time, competition among men of all ages for younger mates has left older females with much less chance of reproducing,” adding that “natural selection is only concerned with the survival of the species through individual fitness so they protect fertility in women while they are most likely to reproduce.” The rub here is not only does fertility cease to exist but women are left with a host of health problems as a result. Yikes!
Interestingly, the lead investigator, Rama Singh, points out that if women had historically been the ones to select younger mates, the situation would have been reversed, with men losing fertility.
Besides the obvious conclusion, that is, men put the men in menopause, what else can we draw from this hypothesis. For one, if male selection drove the ‘pause, it isn’t inconceivable that the paradigm could ultimately be reversed. But that’s science fiction for another planet and another time.
On a side note? The term male menopause is a bit rhetorical, don’t you think? That’s a topic for another day.
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Wednesday Bubble: Got a fix for that?
No bursting going on this week! Need a quick fix? Somehow, Jiffy Lube might not be the wisest choice.
See you Friday. With some big news!
Read MoreScents and sensibility…aromatherapy and your mental health
Scents? Or Sensibility? Can aromatherapy boost the psychological benefits of therapeutic massage?
I am a huge proponent of aromatherapy also though I have never been convinced one way or the other of its medicinal value. I simply like good scents; I find that they can energize or relax, boost endorphins or calm nerves. And yet, one thing that I did not realize is that aromatherapy massage is the most widely used complementary therapy in nursing practice — legitimized largely by its role in holistic nursing — and is recognized by the US State Boards of Nursing. There are data that suggest that aromatherapy may help improve anxiety, depression and mood swings, which is interesting since mood swings and depression are common among some women going through menopause. And, massage has been reported to be helpful in ameliorating certain symptoms, including insomnia.
So, what exactly is aromatherapy?
Aromatherapy refers to the use of essential oils, extracts if you will, that are distilled from roots, seeds, leaves or blossoms of plants to promote physical healing or enhance overall wellbeing. The practice has been used for roughly 6,000 for therapeutic purposes. While experts are not certain how aromatherapy works, some believe that it works through smell receptors in the nose that communicate directly with the brain.
Currently, researchers are reporting that when added to therapeutic massage in menopausal women, it may help to reduce the burden of psychological symptoms. In fact, when they compared the effects of twice weekly, 30 minute aromatherapy massage sessions to the same type of massage but an odorless oil and to no intervention at all, that is exactly what they found.
For the purpose of this four week study, researchers used an oil that consisted of safely diluted proportions (4:2:2:1 ratio, respectively) of:
- lavender — known for its sedative properties and ability to promote calm
- geranium — commonly used for menopause
- rose — useful for reducing stress and targeting menopause and related hormonal issues
- rosemary — known to improve circulation and exhaustion
Evening primrose oil — an oil that is often used as a carrier (pressed rather than distilled) oil to enhance the effects of the essential oils.
A certified midwife (who also held a massage and aromatherapy certification) conducted the massages at the same time daily; oil was applied with hands using clockwise circular movements with light pressure and the participants lay face down. And, the researchers used two scientific measures both at the study’s start and end to evaluation depressed mood, irritability, anxiety, physical/mental exhaustion and impairments in memory and concentration. To reduce bias, face to face interviews were carried out rather than relying on recall and self administered questionnaire.
The findings? Both aromatherapy therapeutic massage and regular therapeutic massage appeared to have positive effects on psychological symptoms. However, somewhat higher average reductions in severity scores were seen in women who had the aromatherapy massage. And compared to women who didn’t receive any treatment whatsoever, aromatherapy massage had significant effects on depression, irritability, anxiety and physical and mental exhaustion.
It’s virtually impossible to tease out the emotional benefits alone of having massage or aromatherapy massage; being touched warmly and gently tends to boost overall wellbeing. However, from a scientific standpoint, aromatherapy massage therapy in a controlled environment appears to boost the effects of regular massage.
Yesterday, I put this theory to test. I felt a heck of a lot better but not necessarily due to the scents. I’m opting for sensibility on this one. Meanwhile, what are your thoughts on aromatherapy?
Read MoreRe-spilling the beans on coffee and caffeine
With all the attention on coffee this week, I thought I’d re-spill the beans with a note of caution: not every cuppa is created equal. It seems fairly intuitive, doesn’t it? Afterall, the gut wrenching motor oil that you pick up at McDonalds is hardly equal to the made to order brew that is sold at one of my local favourites – Peregrine Espresso.
Recently, I ran across an editorial in the online edition of Maturitas that provides a deeper dive into coffee and what we, as consumers, are actually drinking every time we purchase a cup in a coffee shop. And the data may astonish you because while the serving sizes of espresso are within similar ranges, the caffeine content varies as much as two to almost six-fold. And let’s face it; most of us drink coffee for the taste. And for the caffeine effects.
However, as the authors point out, when it comes to commercially purchased coffee, it’s almost impossible to determine how much caffeine one is actually ingesting. This makes it difficult to stay within guidelines outlined by the International Food Council that suggest that moderate intake of caffeine equates to roughly three 8 oz cups a day, or 300 mg per day. (FYI: on average, it takes 5 hours for most adults to metabolize and excrete about half the caffeine consumed — in scientific circles, this is called “half-life”). And while this may seem unimportant to most, too much caffeine not only promotes insomnia or feeling jittery, but in amounts over the moderate intake level, may be downright dangerous for pregnant women (whose fetus can’t metabolize the purine akaloid in coffee). On the flip side? Regular coffee intake can help control gycemic levels (so long as you don’t add sugar), reduce the risk of depression and reduce cognitive decline, especially in women.
So, what do you need to know before you buy that next cuppa?
- Different coffee shops used differing amounts of coffee to prepare their coffee drinks.
- Barista methods vary from shop to shop and factors like water temperature, steam, time brewed, etc, all play a role.
- If you are a latte or cappuccino lover, your espresso is diluted but to what extent is a mystery.
- Beans are harvested, roasted and ground differently from one cup to the next.
The authors say to have no fear but to insist on “good quality, 100% arrabica beans,” and to start paying attention to the process. I think that this advice is a bit far fetched because short of being one of ‘those’ customers, I don’t see how one can control or demand. Starbucks is Starbucks, right? BTW, while the analysis was conducted in Scotland, Starbucks espresson had the lowest level of caffeine per serving — only 51 mg, which begs the question, what are you paying for when you drop $5 on the double espresso?
So, “what’s in your cup?” It’s fairly intuitive that a few visits to the same coffee shop will yield a lot of non-scientific answers; if two espressos cause a whole lotta jitters, have one the next time. That aside, I suggest a home brew to take all questions off the table and help insure that you are getting all of the benefits that you can out of every cup.
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