The next time you have an urge to laugh out loud, do not restrain yourself. Give in to that urge and have a hearty laugh, for you might just be kicking out a few calories when you do so.
American researchers have found that 10-15 minutes of laughing out loud has the potential of burning out as much calories as is contained in a medium bar of chocolate. The researchers presented their findings at the annual European Congress on Obesity on Saturday. Scientists from the Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, sealed off about 45 pairs of friends in a room scientifically known as a metabolic chamber. They then played comedy clips on a TV screen and measured the amount of energy generated by the laughter.
Lead researcher, Maciej Buchowski, director of bionutrition at Vanderbilt, said, "We didn't tell them that the goal of the study was to measure laughter, because then they might have forced it. And forced laughter is regulated by a totally different part of the brain. We wanted it to be genuine laughter."
The scientists measured the energy released by noting the differences between the amount of oxygen inhaled and the amount of carbon dioxide exhaled. This also allowed the scientists to calculate whether laughter used more energy or not. The researchers also fitted heart rate monitors to the volunteers since heart rate tends to respond to changes more quickly than breathing does. They also asked the volunteers not to talk or move, but just watch what was unfolding on the screens before them.
"First it was half an hour of something boring -- an English landscape. During that time we measured the baseline, the resting metabolic rate," Buchowski said. After that five comedy clips including one from "The Cosby show", were shown for 10 minutes each. In the five-minute interval between each comedy clip, the volunteers were shown scenes of sheep wandering around fields in England.
"They burned 20 percent more calories when laughing, compared to not laughing. Then we calculated what would happen if somebody laughed for 10 or 15 minutes a day and we found that it was up to 50 calories, depending on your body size and the intensity of the laughter," Buchowski said. He added that this amounted to 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) a year if you do it every day. Researchers also found that the male students laughed more than the females and the longest recorded laughter was 40 seconds in a minute.
Around 2,000 delegates from 80 countries attended the four-day European Congress on Obesity that is slated to end on Saturday. While it is obvious that laughter alone cannot tackle the epidemic of obesity that is looming large in developed countries, it is noteworthy that laughing can indeed burn more calories. Besides providing relief from the day-to-day stressful situations, laughter can also speed up your metabolism. Indeed, laughter is the best medicine!
