ScienceDaily (Dec. 10, 2009) — Scientists from the University of Zurich have discovered the physiological mechanisms in the brain that underlie broken promises. Patterns of brain activity even enable predicting whether someone will break a promise.
Despite the ubiquity of promises in human life, we know very little about the brain physiological mechanisms underlying this phenomenon. In order to increase understanding in this area, neuroscientist Thomas Baumgartner (University of Zurich) and economists Ernst Fehr (University of Zurich) and Urs Fischbacher (University of Konstanz) carried out a social interaction experiment in a brain scanner where the breach of a promise led both to monetary benefits for the promise breaker and to monetary costs for the interaction partner. The results of the study show that increased activity in areas of the brain playing an important role in processes of emotion and control accompany the breach of a promise. This pattern of brain activity suggests that breaking a promise triggers an emotional conflict in the promise breaker due to the suppression of an honest response.
Furthermore, the most important finding of the study enabled the researchers to show that "perfidious" patterns of brain activity even allow the prediction of future behavior. Indeed, experimental subjects who ultimately keep a promise and those who eventually break one act exactly the same at the time the promise is made -- both swear to keep their word. Brain activity at this stage, however, often exposes the subsequent promise breakers.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Friday, December 4, 2009
The Laughing Magick
Laughter yoga is a form of exercise based on the principle that you can—and probably should—laugh independently of your state of mind or mood, and that this laughter has health benefits. Its proponents are quick to explain that laughter yoga is playful, not silly, and that participants shouldn’t try to look or be funny. You don’t even have to be happy.
"Laughter yoga invites you to ‘fake it’ until it becomes real." Gendry, who’s the founder and director of the American School of Laughter Yoga, discourages the use of jokes and comedy routines, which make it more difficult to get ego, power struggles, conflict and judgment out of the way of plain, simple laughter. Laughter yoga’s link to more familiar forms of yoga is that the laughter is used as a form of breath work, and, like yoga, its goals are harmony and balance. Laughter yoga is the outgrowth of research on the health benefits of laughter conducted by Madan Kataria, a family physician based in Mumbai, India, who developed the technique in conjunction with his yoga-instructor wife, Madhuri, in 1995. ode
1. Reduces risk of heart disease. Research shows that laughing expands the inner walls of the arteries thereby increasing the blood flow. Furthermore, this positive effect lasted for 30-45 minutes.
2. Checks blood pressure. When you laugh, the blood flow increases and the blood pressure rises. But when you stop laughing, blood pressure drops back to its baseline. This relaxing effect helps bring down blood pressure.
3. Laughing boosts the immune system. Laughing increases the amount of immunoglobulins and T cells in the body, our body’s natural defense mechanism.
4. Natural painkiller. Laughing helps people forget about pain. Studies show that children watching comedy films tolerate pain more easily. There are many more studies to validate the pain relieving effects of good laughter.
5. Massages the abdominal organs. Belly laughing gives a good massage to the abdominal organs, like liver, kidney, pancreas, spleen and adrenal glands. As a result, blood flow is increased and their functioning is improved.
6. Decreases stress. Laughing instantly reduces stress hormones levels and hence is one of the most effective ways to reduce effects of stress.
7. Helps keep diabetes under control. A study showed that people who watched a funny video after meal had comparatively lesser blood sugar level than those who watched a serious film.
8. Makes you look young. Laughing requires as many as 15 muscles to squeeze facial muscles in to a smile. This act increases the blood flow around the face making you look younger.
9. Is an effective anti-depressant. Laughter keeps depression and anxiety at bay by boosting the production of serotonin, a natural anti-depressant. It’s no surprise that people with a good sense of humor rarely get depressed. And even if they do get, they get over it quickly.
10. Acts like a cleansing and energizing breath. During stress, our breathing is shallow and there is a build up carbon dioxide and residual air in our lungs. Belly laughing forces the air out of lungs, until its empty, followed by a deep inhalation. Hence repeated laughing cleanses the body and energizes it with fresh oxygen.
11. Gives good sleep. One of the main factors responsible for sleep problems is stress and anxiety. Having a good laugh prior to sleep reduces stress and anxiety, promoting deep, restful sleep.
12. Families that laugh together, stay together. In most affluent families, each member have their own separate room and TV. Forget watching an entire movie, they hardly get time to sit together for a meal. As a result there is hardly any bonding between the members. On other hand, families that spend time together and have a laugh, gel together and have a greater degree of bonding.
13. Laughter is contagious. It not only lifts our spirits but also of others around us. Humorous are always in demand. A single humorous person lifts the spirit of everyone around him/her. Blessed are those who have such friends.
Hell, fake smiling will even brighten up your mood. Now there's a whole branch of psychology that explores the benefits of being happy. And to compliment those theories, psychoneuroimmunology and health psychology take a more clinical approach.
A good laugh may not only lift your mood, but can make you more cooperative and altruistic towards strangers, according to a new study.
Laughter, a universal human behavior, has been shown in previous studies to act as a "social lubricant" and promote group cohesiveness. In this new study, researchers tested whether this sense of closeness would promote altruistic behavior.
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