Laughter & wellbeing

This week’s  #WellbeingWednesday tip comes from Amy, our Whole School Approach and Staff Wellbeing Advisor.

My wellbeing tip for this week is to laugh. We have all heard that phrase ‘laughter is the best medicine’ so my wellbeing tip for this week is based around that.

As a child, we laugh on average 200 times per day but as adults we laugh around 15 times per day. It’s time to embrace our inner child as laughter has several benefits for wellbeing.

Laughter has several physical health benefits as well as mental health benefits including: 

• Being able to relax and recharge.
• Reducing distressing emotions (anxiety, anger, sadness).
• Shifts perspective (evidence suggests that a humorous perspective can create a psychological distance which helps with feeling overwhelmed.)
• Boosting the immune system. • Decreasing stress hormones.
• Decreasing pain. • Releasing endorphins.
• Increasing blood flow.
• Burning calories (not enough to skip your workout though!)
• Connecting us with others.
• Strengthening relationships

This week try and increase your levels of laughter through sharing humour with friends and family, watching funny tv shows, movies, videos or memes or playing with your pets or children.
 

Posted on: 5th May 2021