Chapter 15

Laughter is the Best Medicine for Your Health

What makes you laugh? Do you like to laugh? How do you feel after you laugh?

Preview with vocabulary

cardiologist
Laughter may help protect you against a heart attack, according to a recent study by cardiologists at the University of Maryland Medical Center.

impairment
Mental stress is associated with impairment of the endothelium, the protective barrier lining our blood vessels.

inflammatory
This can cause a series of inflammatory reactions that lead to fat and cholesterol build-up in the coronary arteries.

questionnaire
One questionnaire had a series multiple-choice answers to find out how much or how little people laughed in certain situations.

hostility
The second used true or false answers to measure anger and hostility.

implication
The ability to laugh may have important implications in societies such as the United States where heart disease remains the number one killer.

hearty
Exercising, not smoking, and eating foods low in saturated fat will reduce the risk of heart disease. Perhaps regular, hearty laughter should be added to the list.

incorporate
It may be possible to incorporate laughter into our daily activities just as we do with other heart-healthy activities.

Sentences to remember

Sentences to remember 1

Can a laugh every day keep the heart attack away?

Sentences to remember 2

The old saying that laughter is the best medicine appears to be true when it comes to protecting your heart.

Sentences to remember 3

People with heart disease were 40 percent less likely to laugh compared to people of the same age without heart disease .

Sentences to remember 4

It may be possible to incorporate laughter into our daily activities just as we do with other hearthealthy activities.

Sentences to remember 5

We could try to find ways to take ourselves less seriously.

Cloze Quiz

(1)

attack

(2)

humor
(3)

(4)laughter

cardiologists

Can a laugh every day keep the heart (1)a away? Maybe so. Laughter, along with an active sense of (2)h , may help protect you against a heart attack, according to a recent study by (3)c at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore. The study, which is the first to indicate that (4)l may help prevent heart (5)d , found that people with heart disease were 40 (6)p less likely to laugh in a (7)v of situations compared to people of the same age (8)w heart disease. (6)percent (5)disease

(8)without (7)variety

(9)

medicine

(10)

protecting
(11)

heart

The old saying that laughter is the best (9)m , definitely appears to be true when it comes to (10)p your heart, says Michael Miller, M.D. We dont know yet why laughing protects the (11)h , but we know that mental stress is associated with (12)i of the endothelium, the protective barrier lining our blood vessels. This can cause a series of inflammatory reactions that lead to fat and cholesterol (13)b in the coronary arteries and ultimately to a heart attack.
(12)

impairment

(13)

build-up

(14) coronary (15) situations

(16) hostility (17) significant

(18) anger In the study, researchers compared the humor responses of 300 people. Half of the participants had either suffered a heart attack or undergone (14)c artery bypass surgery. The other 150 did not have heart disease. One questionnaire had a series of multiple-choice answers to find out how much or how little people laughed in certain (15)s , and the second one used true or false answers to measure anger and (16)h . Miller said that the most (17)s study finding was that people with heart disease responded less humorously to everyday life situations. They generally laughed less, even in positive situations, and they displayed more (18)a and hostility.

The ability to laugheither naturally or as (19)l behavior may have important (20)i in societies such as the U.S. where heart disease remains the number one killer, says Miller. We know that exercising, not smoking, and eating foods low in saturated fat will reduce the risk of heart disease. Perhaps regular, hearty laughter should be added to the list.

(19)learned

(20)implications