Over the next few days I plan to post some clean humor. I do on this once in a while because God gave us the ability to laugh and too often we over looking laughing.
Laughing is good for you, it is health and frankly you feel so much better when you laugh.
Before you think I have gone off on the deep end, let me share some things with you...
Researchers from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore compared the effects of watching funny and stressful films.
Stress caused blood flow to slow by around 35%, but laughter increased it by around 22%, they told the American College of Cardiology.
UK heart experts said there was increasing interest in the idea that positive emotions benefited health.
The US team studied 20 healthy, non-smoking volunteers, with an average age of 33.
They watched either a segment of a film which would cause mental stress, such as the opening part of Saving Private Ryan, or a segment of a film which would make them laugh, such as King Pin.
At least 48 hours later, they were shown a film which would cause the opposite effect to the first.
Before watching each film, the volunteers fasted overnight and were tested to see how well blood vessels in the brachial artery in the arm responded to a sudden increase in blood flow, in a test called a flow-mediated vasodilation.
Volunteers watched a 15-minute segment of the film while lying down in a temperature-controlled room.
After the film was shown, their blood vessels were tested again.
'Laughing cuts heart risk'
No difference was seen in blood vessel dilation between the two groups before they watched the films.
But brachial artery flow was reduced in 14 of the 20 volunteers following the film clips that caused mental stress.
In contrast, beneficial blood vessel relaxation, or vasodilation, was increased in 19 of the 20 volunteers after they watched the film segments that generated laughter.
The researchers suggested laughter caused the tissue that forms the inner lining of blood vessels, the endothelium, to expand in order to increase blood flow.
The endothelium is known to have a powerful effect on blood vessel tone and regulates blood flow, adjusts coagulation and blood thickening, and secretes chemicals and other substances in response to wounds, infections or irritation.
It also plays an important role in the development of cardiovascular disease.
Impairment of the function of the lining of blood vessels is an early sign of cardiovascular problems.
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