Laugh Out Loud!

Today I want to look closer on the “phenomenon” LOL. I believe it’s the most commonly used term in SL and virtual communication.

LOL as in laugh(ing) Out Loud, can also mean Lots Of Love or Lots Of Luck. I believe that laughing out loud can lead to lots of luck and/or love.

Does it matter if you actually laugh out loud when you type LOL?

Charles Darwin believed that one’s facial expression can actually influence one’s moods. Studies in bio-feedback confirm Darwin’s belief.

This could mean that typing lol, whether you`re laughing or not, can influence your mood and make you happier!

Lets look at what laughter can do for you:

♥ Laughter makes you more relaxed, gives you more empathy and makes you feel happier.
♥ 15 minutes of laughter equals the benefit of 2 hours sleep.
♥ One good belly laugh burns off 3 1/2 calories.
♥ Laughing for 15 seconds adds 2 days to your life span.
♥ Laughter releases endorphins into the body with the same exhilarating effect as doing strenuous exercise.
♥ A good belly laugh exercises the diaphragm, contracts the abs and even works out the shoulders, leaving muscles more relaxed afterward. It even provides a good workout for the heart.
♥ In terms of exercise, you can get the same benefits from laughing 100 times a day, as you can from 10 minutes of rowing.
♥ Laughter lowers the levels of cortisol in the body. Cortisol suppresses the immune system. Lowering these levels enhances the work of the immune system and may prevent disease.
♥ Laughter brings the focus away from anger, guilt, stress and negative emotions.
♥ Laughter causes endorphin release, similar to the ‘high’ joggers get when jogging.
♥ Laughter connects us with others. Laughter is contagious, so if you bring more laughter into your life, you can most likely help others around you to laugh more, and realize these benefits as well.
♥ By elevating the mood of those around you, you can reduce their stress levels, and perhaps improve the quality of social interaction you experience with them, reducing your stress level even more!

This sounds almost too good to be true. All those benefits just by having fun. Its magic! Laughter is an instant vacation!

We can not be taught to laugh or how to laugh. We just do it. Its the universal language.Laughter is out of everyone’s control. You don’t chose to laugh, like “yeah, that’s funny, I’m gonna laugh now”. you just laugh.

Funny thing is, we(humans) consider ourselves to be rational, conscious beings, but important parts of our behavior is controlled by , unconscious processes.

Plato feared laughter. He said it was ugly and that it could undermine authorities and lead to the fall of the state. In the 1800 century in England laughter was considered to be a lose of control. As an ugly primal quality. Schools been forbidding it. Stress and chasing success leads to deadly seriousness. Millions of people survives without laughing. Imagine going through life and not even laugh once! What a waste…

Laughter used as medicine:

Norman Cousins, an American political journalist, author, professor and world peace advocate was, in 1964, diagnosed with Anklyosing Spondylitis, a collagen illness that attacks the connective tissues of the body. Told that he had little chance of surviving, Cousins developed a recovery program incorporating megadoses of Vitamin C, along with a positive attitude, love, faith, hope, and laughter induced by Marx Brothers films. “I made the joyous discovery that ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep,” he reported. “When the pain-killing effect of the laughter wore off, we would switch on the motion picture projector again and not infrequently, it would lead to another pain-free interval.”

What you’ve perhaps already guessed, Cousins recovered from the disease. He returned to work and wrote about his experimental treatment in his book ‘Anatomy of an Illness.’ In 1989, it was finally acknowledged in the Journal of the American Medical Association that laughter therapy could help improve the quality of life for patients with chronic illness and that laughter has an immediate symptom relieving effect.

http://www.humor-laughter.com/Norman-Cousins-laughter.html

The answer to terrorism, violence and bad things is unconditional laughter and unconditional love. When you laugh you change. When you change the whole world changes around you. We cant take away the darkness from the world, but we can light a lamp.If we keep on increasing positivity, darkness will disappear.

When people are laughing, they’re generally not killing each other. ~Alan Alda

Mark Twain said:

We only have one true weapon, the laughter.
Life is serious, death is serious, its time to take laughter seriously.

Even if there is nothing to laugh about, laugh on credit.

— Agnes S.