24. Laugh often, laugh deeply, have fun! (64 nondrug ways to lower BP).

I suggest that everyone should read 10 jokes a day (and then tell the best one to at least 4 of your friends), and watch 30 minutes of comedy of some sort. Those old TV serials on DVD are wonderful. Does laughing really work wonders? I don’t know, everytime I try this treatment, I’m laughing too hard to even think about taking my blood pressure.

An older guy with a high blood pressure goes to a lady’s house for the first time, and she shows him into the living room. She excuses herself to go to the kitchen to make them a few drinks, and he notices a strange vase on the mantel.

He picks it up, and as he’s looking at it, she walks back in. She says, “Oh, I see you found my father’s ashes” to which his blood pressure triples. As he carefully and delicately puts the vase back in place, she adds “Yeah, he’s too lazy to go to the kitchen to get an ashtray.” At which point he breaks out in huge belly laugh. She says, “What’s so funny?” “Nothing… I just think I had a blood pressure spike followed by blood pressure dip.” “That funny”, she says I learned in nursing school that blood pressure drops from laughing not the other way around. “yea”, he replies, “that cause and effect is a strange thing.”

http://helpguide.org/life/humor_laughter_health.htm http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=laughing-matters http://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/human-nature/other-emotions/laughter.htm http://www.umm.edu/news/releases/laughter2.htm