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Help them Laugh and they will be ready for your pitch! “Vigorous laughter is stimulating—increasing heart rate, blood pressure, and circulation; enhancing circulating immune substance effectiveness, pulmonary ventilation, and alertness; and exercising the skeletal muscles. Following laughter there is a brief period during which blood pressure drops and heart rate, respiratory rate, and muscle activity decrease, resulting in relaxation (Fry, 1994). Laughter is distracting, capturing awareness much as sneezing does.” Relaxed customers are willing customers! “All of this makes sense in light of laughter's numerous physiological effects. "After you laugh, you go into a relaxed state," explains John Morreall, Ph.D., president of HUMORWORKS Seminars in Tampa, Florida. "Your blood pressure and heart rate drop below normal, so you feel profoundly relaxed. Laughter also indirectly stimulates endorphins, the brain's natural painkillers." A laugh a day keeps the doctor away
“When we burst out laughing, blood levels of oxygen increase, and blood pressure tends to go down. In fact, a bout of laughter may be as good for your heart as a session of aerobic exercise, according to a study at the University of Maryland.” “Researchers say that stress has harmful effects on the lining of blood vessels, reducing the production of artery-dilating chemicals and causing vessels to narrow. Laughter, on the other hand, is a proven stress-reducer.” “Laughter also reduces allergic reactions, from hives to hay fever, to animals and plants. (People shown a Charlie Chaplin film found their allergy symptoms reduced for four hours afterward.)” The Laughter Cure
They have shown that laughter increases the number of activated Tlymphocytes and the number of T-cells with helper/suppressor markers, otherwise known as happy cells, which help to prevent infection. Some of these happy cells divide and secrete in a way that regulates or helps the immune response, while others are crucial for the maintenance of immunological tolerance. Using a professionally trained clown to make the patients laugh, scientists at the Assaf Haro-feh Medical Centre in Zerifin, Israel, found that the rate of successful pregnancies increased from 20 to 35 percent.
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Source: Journal of Psychology, Mar2002, Vol. 136 Issue 2, p171, 11p.
Item: 7118980
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