Laughter Really Is the Best Anti-Aging Medicine Against Stress

It’s not uncommon to hear the phrase “laughter is the best medicine.” When it comes to anti-aging and stress, it’s actually quite true. Laughter does a lot of good for your body by changing around the ways that your body produces certain hormones, which can ultimately lead to less stress, fewer physical problems, and more benefits.

One huge benefit of laughter is that it makes your body slow down the production of cortisol. Cortisol is the stress hormone responsible for all of the bad feelings you have when you get stressed out.

Your body assumes that since you’re laughing, you must not be in any danger, and therefore you don’t need the stress hormone. This action alone cuts back on a huge amount of physical effects, such as soreness, insomnia, and more.

Laughing can help your body produce more endorphins, a positive hormone that helps make you feel excited, happy, and more active. Endorphins are crucial to dealing with stress, because they not only lighten your mood, but also help motivate you to tackle whatever it is that’s stressing you out.

By increasing the production of endorphins, you’re helping your body deal with stress and preventing any unnecessary, excessive aging. Yet another benefit of laughter is its ability to boost your immune system.

It increases antibody production and makes T cells better at doing their jobs, leading to a stronger all around immune system. Considering that stress can wear out an immune system, having something to boost it back up can be incredibly valuable, and might just prevent you from catching a virus.

Having some joy and laughter in your life is very important. Find some ways to make yourself laugh every now and then, no matter what it takes. If you frequently watch dramatic TV shows and movies, go for some comedies from time to time.

With so many different shows available, you’re bound to find something that fits your style of humor. Even if it requires you to find something silly and stupid that you wouldn’t normally think is funny, go with it.

Make some stupid jokes with your friends that you can just simply laugh at. If you make everything in life serious and complicated, you’re going to have a harder time getting through it. With all of the benefits that come with laughter, you’d be putting yourself at a disadvantage not trying to get more of it.

Lethargy from Stress Can Affect Mobility as You Grow Older

One huge aspect of stress is that it often brings on depression. When you get depressed or stressed out, you’ll find yourself frequently spending a great deal of time sedentary.

You’ll want to be alone and spend a lot more time in bed or on the couch. You’ll become lethargic and won’t want to go out and do things, because you’ll be more comfortable staying at home.

However, as comfortable as that might be, lethargy can have some serious long term effects on your mobility. Staying stagnant each passing day can cause your joints to deteriorate over time, meaning that as you grow older, your knees and elbows will start to function worse.

This can make it even harder to get out and be mobile, meaning that it’s a self-supporting cycle. By ceasing all activity, you’re forcing yourself into a cycle of inactivity in which you continue to let your body deteriorate over time.

You’ll find that simple tasks like walking up stairs or moving around in general are painful and more difficult than they were before. This can make you even more stressed and depressed, and make you move even less, only furthering the impact that it has on you.

The only way to prevent this is to remain active even through stressful times. Many people have found that for them, going to the gym and doing some exercise is therapeutic.

It’s definitely possible that working out can give you an outlet for your stress, while also ensuring that you will remain healthy in the future, so give it a try. Even if the stress remains despite your best efforts to exercise, don’t stop there.

As long as you’re getting physical activity in some way, you’re going to be at least maintaining your body for the long run. While your stress might be temporary, the damage that you can do to your body by being lethargic is permanent.

If the gym doesn’t feel right for you, find something else. It could be a recreational sport, going hiking, or just taking a bike ride around the neighborhood. Whatever works best for you to maintain some kind of activity is the right thing for you.

If you’re not enjoying what you’re doing, you’re only going to get more stressed out and do more damage to your body. Don’t try to force yourself into situations that you don’t want to be in.

Modify Your Mindset Against Stress as You Grow Older

There’s a strong link between the body and the mind. What you allow yourself think about can make stress worse. These thoughts can then influence how the stress affects your body.

When you allow yourself to have the kind of mindset that keeps stress going, it can age your body. People who mentally give space to stress age at a faster progression than those who practice the power of a positive mindset.

Stress affects your emotions and these emotions can strike at the heart of your DNA by interrupting the healthy cellular growth cycle. When you’re anxious or angry, you can become irritated and feel even more stressed out.

This can cause you to develop a cynical or pessimistic mindset. Those who have a pessimistic mindset end up aging faster than those who have a positive mindset. These people have a tendency to develop age related diseases such as cardiovascular disease and even certain cancers.

Stress itself doesn’t cause these diseases or cancers to develop. It’s the physical damage created by stress that does this. And your body will always react to stress, even if it’s short term.

If you want to stop the accelerated aging process going on as a result of stress, you have to learn how to modify your mindset. You need to not only practice positive thoughts, but learn how to think better so that you develop a mindset that effectively diminishes stress.

Having a positive mindset doesn’t mean that stress is automatically going to dissipate. What it means is that you’re learning new coping skills that prepare you to handle stress so that it doesn’t internalize and speed up your aging process.

Begin by eliminating any negative things that you say to yourself when stress hits. This might be something negative about the situation or about yourself. Stop and reframe the negative into a positive.

Filter your thoughts. When something negative happens that could be potentially stressful, catch yourself before you allow yourself to dwell on the downside. Find one good thing about what happened or whatever is going on that’s causing your stress.

Focus your thoughts on that good thing. Don’t envision the worst about anything or anyone. When you do that, it can cause stress to grow. See the stress for what it is – a moment in your life, nothing more than that.

Sometimes people stress because they think whatever they’re stressing about is going to last forever. It won’t. Find something to be grateful for every single day. Find something to laugh about.

Take care of your body. Eat right, exercise and get the sleep that you need. Make sure that your support team is made up of people who are positive, those who support you and won’t let you remain negative or dwell on stressful things or people.

Music Is a Stress Reliever That Works for All Ages

Emotional chaos can cause a lot of stress. This type of chaos is often caused from reactive responses. Something happens, a stressor, and you react. The reaction can be physical – such as your heart beating faster, your stomach beginning to hurt, you feel nauseated, overwhelmed and more.

Or, the reaction can be emotional. You feel out of control, angry, depressed, anxious and so on. Over time, the stress builds and the body then begins to undergo stress-related reactions in the form of physical or emotional health issues.

Most of these issues speed up the aging process. These issues can be blood sugar spikes, weight problems, mood disorders and more. But when you use music as a stress reliever, you can stop the physical and emotional reaction to stress that’s shortening your life.

Music relaxes both the body and the mind. It has the ability to calm the stress and stop the release of cortisol. To help alleviate stress, you can meditate with music. This can be something like classical music or jazz but it can also be your favorite type of music, too.

Music is a known mood booster. This is why it’s often used as part of therapy treatment. It’s known to calm anxiety and depression because it causes the release of endorphins. It can stir positive emotions, too – and help listeners feel good about themselves and their lives.

Listening to your favorite music can also boost focus. Stress is known to cause problems with concentration as well as memory recall issues. Music is known to cause mental alertness and boost memory function.

Stress wreaks havoc on the body and can cause immune system deterioration, but listening to music can improve the immune system function. The way that it does this is by stimulating the release of antibodies while at the same time limiting the release of the stress hormone.

One thing that often goes hand in hand with stress are aches and pains in the body. That’s because stress causes tension in the body. When you tense up, under normal circumstances, your muscles will relax, but stress keeps your muscles tight and that tension leads to muscle pain in a specific area or all over.

Music can help your body get relief from pain, which in turn lowers the stress hormone.
Not only can listening to music do that, but it can also help relieve the issues that cause health problems that lead to a shortened life.

For example, if stress has raised your blood pressure, then listening to music can bring those levels back down. It can do this because music relaxes the blood vessels and relaxed blood vessels means they’ve widened, which means the heart doesn’t have to work as hard.

Political Stress Is Causing Chronic Emotional Chaos

If you pay attention to what’s going on in the world, then you will notice that the political divide is wider than it ever has been before, thanks to the Internet fueling the flames. Tensions are sharp and the stress is deeper and longer lasting.

Studies show that two thirds of people report that politics are causing them emotional chaos due to the negative conversations with people on opposing sides of the spectrum.

Hearing the constant negative political talk on the news as well as seeing it on social media weighs on them heavily. People are also admitting that political stress bothers them more than stress about relationships, finances or work issues.

Emotional stress causes premature aging because it affects the body’s cells that are ultimately responsible for the aging process. This constant internal bath of stress weakens cells as it simultaneously shortens them.

As a result of this ongoing weakness, the cells die off quicker than they normally would.
The barrage of political stress leads to anxiety, anger and depression. Some people report arguing and name calling during political discussions.

The divide among family, friends and communities causes deep internal struggles and can lead to insomnia. As a result of the internalized stress and physical effects like insomnia, the body’s biological clock can age as much as a decade.

During this battle with stress, not only are the cells dying off, but new cells aren’t producing in the numbers that they once did. As a result of both the dying off and the lower production of cells, the body’s cells begin to experience a higher risk of developing age related diseases – including heart disease and certain types of cancer.

Normal methods of dealing with stress, such as making sure you eat right, exercise and get a good night’s sleep, don’t seem to improve the type of stress caused by political turmoil.

Many people are finding that their health has been impacted by this. They’re dealing with health issues such as stomachaches, digestive issues and weight fluctuations. Some people are battling high blood pressure, while others are experiencing a deteriorating immune system.

They’re finding that they get sick more often than they did before they started dealing with political stress. People are experiencing problems with cognitive function, such as memory recall.

This is caused because stress can kill the cells within the brain. It affects the cortex area, which is directly responsible for memory. In an effort to deal with the stress they’re under, some people are turning to substance abuse in an attempt to find relief from the emotional political chaos they’re going through.

Release Endorphins to Fight Back Against Stress as You Age

Your body naturally produces a range of hormones that can both help and hinder you. People commonly look towards cortisol as a hormone that can hinder you, by causing many bodily functions to perform poorly.

In order to combat that, you need to help your body produce more endorphins, one of the two main chemicals associated with happiness and pleasure that can help you suppress feelings of stress.

Endorphins are the much more excited version of serotonin, another hormone that’s commonly associated with happiness. While serotonin makes you feel relaxed and calm, endorphins are the ones that make you feel excited, like being out and about with a group of friends and having a good time.

There are plenty of benefits that come along with endorphins, and if you’re not producing enough, there are ways to get your body to start producing more. The main benefit associated with endorphins is the extreme pleasure you feel when they’re released.

This is the same chemical that gives runners their “runner’s high,” and it makes you feel like you’re on top of the world. By making you feel super happy, it definitely helps suppress the mental effects of stress, which would otherwise cause things like depression and anxiety.

Another benefit of endorphins is that they help you a lot with pain. Studies have found that endorphins are so good at reducing pain, they’re more effective than the commonly used morphine.

This helps with some of the physical aspects of stress, such as aches and soreness, by helping you not feel or focus on it nearly as much. Unfortunately, our bodies don’t just release endorphins on command.

It takes some signals to get them to release, but if you know what those signals are, then you can use them to your advantage to help pick yourself up. If you can do something specific to get your body to produce more endorphins, then you’re not going to be as likely to succumb to the effects of stress.

The main source of endorphins is laughter. Finding something funny and having a good laugh about it really ramps up the production of endorphins. However, it’s not the only method.

You can also produce them by working out, as seen with the runner’s high. If you’re really low on options, then even eating chocolate will get your body to release some of this hormone.

Serotonin Can Help Diminish Stress and Unleash Happiness

Much of your happiness relies on chemicals being released in your brain. If you’re under a lot of stress, those chemicals won’t be released as often, and you’ll be left feeling unhappy and will be unable to summon any feelings of happiness.

This can lead to prolonged periods of stress, which makes you age and have a few other physical effects that accompany it. One of the most important chemicals for happiness in your brain is serotonin.

Serotonin is a very unique chemical. This is the part of happiness that makes you feel aloof, happy and carefree. It’s a very calm, casual happiness that many people would want nothing more than to have greet them every day.

Serotonin is key for overcoming stress, because it plays an important role in reducing – not only the feeling of stress – but also the physical effects of it. For example, stress can lower your immune system if left in charge for awhile.

This can lead to a variety of bad circumstances, from simple illnesses to faster aging. Serotonin, on the other hand, has been shown to boost your immune system, leaving you less likely to contract a disease or anything else that could put you out of commission.

This alone makes serotonin a fantastic hormone. Another aspect of serotonin is that it can help you sleep better. Sleep is so incredibly important for so many reasons. It helps you stay healthy, look younger, and it helps with stress and similar afflictions.

Without proper sleep, you’ll be gaining weight, getting sick, and suffering from other issues like irritability. By helping you sleep, serotonin is doing a great deal for your physical and mental health.

One way that you can boost your serotonin levels is by going outside regularly. If you’re always cooped up inside, your body won’t produce as much. Figure out some activities you enjoy that involve going outside so that you can get some sunshine, and soon your body will begin to produce more.

An effective way of doing this would be to take up hiking, because exercise also boosts serotonin. While going to the gym is fine, exercising outdoors can help you rapidly raise your serotonin levels.

If you struggle with stress or with depression, raising your serotonin levels might be exactly what’s needed to help you. Without it, you’re going to have a much tougher time overcoming your struggles, so really try to embrace it.

The Stress of Health Issues Can Snowball into Bigger Problems

When faced with any variety of health issues, if you don’t address them correctly, they can quickly lead to bigger, more dangerous problems that you might find yourself unable to deal with.

This happens most often due to the stress surrounding the more minor condition rather than as a result of the smaller problem itself. Essentially, by stressing out about something small, you’re making more trouble for yourself.

Take, for example, a minor back problem. This is a very common thing for adults to experience as they get older. If you let the stress of dealing with it and the stress of paying to fix it get to you, you could end up with increased blood pressure, and if it’s bad enough, that could even lead to a heart attack.

The back pain didn’t directly cause the heart attack, but your consistent stress about the subject did. It’s understandable to get stressed out about things like that. When your body doesn’t work quite as well as it used to, it can be frustrating.

However, the worst thing that you could do is freak out and start worrying about what you’re going to do and how it’ll mess up your life. Instead, you should pursue a calm, collected approach in which you can solve your problem logically and without excessive stress.

Start by assessing the situation. Figure out what it is that caused your minor health problem, and understand why you’re feeling the way you do. Then, you can try to figure out cures, whether it be a brace, ice pack, or something involving a medical professional.

From there, you can determine your next steps, whether it’s working to fix it or finding a way to live with it. Using that method, you’re showing a lot more self-restraint and thinking clearly, leading to less stress, and therefore fewer health problems moving forward.

The worst mistake you can make in any situation is to panic, and unfortunately, that’s a gut response for many people when they’re in such an uncomfortable circumstance. You simply have to overcome that feeling and address the problem logically.

Worrying about your minor medical problems only leads to worse things. The effects of stress are often highly underestimated. It can lead to some pretty serious conditions as you raise your blood pressure and damage your brain. Don’t let yourself get hurt any further – don’t let things like that stress you out to the point where it’s harder to recover.

The Tipping Point of Cortisol from Good Stress Hormone to Bad

Cortisol gets a lot of blame for the adverse effects of stress. While it certainly plays a significant role in that process, that’s not all it does. Your body wouldn’t produce a hormone just to hurt you.

It has a purpose. The main problem with cortisol isn’t the hormone itself, but rather the amount of time that you spend producing it. In small bursts, cortisol is a necessary and beneficial hormone.

It keeps you going when you’re feeling exhausted from stress, and it helps you with your fight or flight reflexes by acting as a pain killer. In fact, in small doses, cortisol does a lot of really important things for you, and you would definitely miss it if you had to go without it.

However, cortisol is only meant to help you in short, quick stressful situations. You’re meant to be able to relax afterwards and let its production slow down. If your entire life is a stressful situation, then your body is going to keep on producing cortisol continuously, leading to a number of adverse effects.

If you’re always under stress, then cortisol will stick around, and many of your other important bodily functions will suffer as a result. Cortisol works by stopping some processes briefly in order to direct more energy towards doing what you need to do, which is useful in a survival situation like those that prehistoric humans were in.

However, over time, the stopping of these functions proves harmful to your body. Your bones won’t be repaired anymore, which can lead to osteoporosis. You’ll start to lose your memory and even muscular structure.

Your aging process will speed up and you’ll start to look older and feel a lot worse. It won’t necessarily kill you, but it won’t feel good. You need to put a pin in your stress so that cortisol levels don’t get out of control.

A healthy amount of this hormone is a good thing. It’s what keeps you excited and driven, and it gives you energy when you need it. You just can’t have that energy all the time, though, because it has to come from somewhere.

You can’t always be relying on your backup energy, either, because that takes a lot of effort to sustain and you’ll tire yourself out quickly. Take time to relax every now and then so that you can recuperate and continue doing what you need to do in life on a regular basis.