r />In fact, a recent study found that laughter, along with an active sense of humour, may help protect against a heart attack. The study, which was the first to indicate that laughter may help prevent heart disease, found that people with heart disease were 40 percent less likely to laugh in a variety of situations compared to people of the same age without heart disease.
So why do stress reduction techniques -- laughter in particular-- reduce the risk of heart disease? To answer that, it helps to know how mental stress can potentially damage your heart.
When you're under a lot of stress there are chemicals, which are released that can cause blood pressure and the heart rate to go up, cause platelets to clump together and all of those set up a series of reactions that could enhance the process of plaque formation and development.
So people that appear to be under lots of stress all the time are at increased risk for heart disease even if they don't have a family history of heart disease or if they don't have diabetes. Conversely, reducing stress, with laughter in particular can have the opposite effect. Reducing stress also benefits the heart by lowering the blood pressure, and heart rate. Similarly, stress-reducing methods, including yoga and meditation, may also be quite helpful in reducing the risk of coronary events.
In fact, cardiologists at the University of Maryland Medical Center have concluded that drinking black or green tea (which contain antioxidants) may help reduce a potentially harmful constriction of blood vessels after a high-fat meal. Their study adds to a growing body of research that suggests antioxidant-rich foods (such as vegetables and fruits) and beverages may help to prevent heart disease.