Laughter is good for us!

Here are 10 reasons why you need to laugh as often as you can:

1. Laughter busts stress. It reduces the levels of stress hormones epinephrine and cortisol.

2. Laughter strengthens the immune system.

3. Laughter is anti-aging. It tones facial muscles and expressions. People look younger and more fun when they laugh!

4. Laughter is aerobic exercise. Laughter stimulates heart and blood circulation and is equivalent to any other standard aerobic exercise.

5. Laughter is internal jogging. It massages internal organs by enhancing the blood supply and increasing their efficiency.

6. Laughter is a natural pain killer.Laughter increases the level of endorphins, the body’s natural pain killers.

7. Laughter can control high blood pressure. It helps to control blood pressure by reducing the release of stress-related hormones. (But don’t stop taking your blood pressure medication.)

8. Laughter can help dump depression and anxiety. Laughter can help you sleep better and reduce depression, lessening the stress and strain of modern life.

9. Laughter alleviates bronchitis and asthma. Laughter improves lung capacity and oxygen levels in the blood.

10. Laughter just makes you feel good.

Source: Healing Thru Yoga Laughter, www.yogalaff.com

The following message about bullying comes from Nicholas Garlow with HealthBeat, a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Bullying can be verbal, like name calling, social, to affect reputations and relationships, or even physical, which hurts someone or their possessions. It can happen anywhere, and to anyone.

We can help kids understand bullying by talking to them about it and teaching them how to stand up to it safely.

Erin Reiney, a public health specialist at the Health Resources and Services Administration says, “If a youth is being bullied, we really need to encourage him or her to talk to a trusted adult and not keep feelings insides. It’s important for a youth to tell somebody about the bullying in order to feel less alone.”

Children, parents, educators, and communities can learn how to take action against bullying and prevent it from happening by going to stopbullying.gov.

Learn more at healthfinder.gov.

Findings from a recent study, available on line in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, point out that nearly half of our preschool children are not getting enough daily outdoor play.

Researchers conducted a study that analyzed data previously collected in a long-term U.S. study that highlights something already know from other studies-girls have fewer opportunities for outdoor play than boys.

The research team looked at statistics on the outdoor-activity routines of 8,950 children born in 2001 who were tracked through enrollment in kindergarten. The data were deemed to be nationally representative, reflecting the behavior of an estimated 4 million kids.

Researchers interviewed each child’s mother on the frequency and kind of outdoor play experience her child had at 9 months, 2 years and 4 years, and then again once enrolled in kindergarten.

Researchers found that 51 percent of the kids had a daily routine of parent-supervised outdoor play. Girls got less daily outdoor exercise.

According to findings, race was a factor. Children from white families got substantially more outdoor play than children with Asian, black or Hispanic mothers. Asian mothers were 49 percent less likely to take their children outdoors for play, black mothers were 41 percent less likely and Hispanic mothers were 20 percent less likely.

TV viewing habits of children, mothers’ marital status, neighborhood safety issues, or family income levels did not affect findings.

The study authors report that the American Academy of Pediatrics asks doctors take a proactive role in encouraging routine physical activity among kids, particularly outdoor activity, which can be critical to helping children develop motor skills, as well as promoting vision and mental acuity.

“I want to encourage parents to talk to all their child’s caregivers, and to ask about their outdoor playtime experience in the same way they would normally ask about how much their child ate that day and what they learned,” said Pooja Tandon, M.D., M.P.H., pediatrician and researcher, Seattle Children’s Research Institute, and acting assistant professor, department of pediatrics, University of Washington, Seattle, the lead researcher of the study.

Rahil Briggs, a child psychologist with Children’s Hospital at Montefiore, in New York City, agreed that “There’s a very real need for growing children to have outdoor play.”

“Unfortunately, I’m not too surprised with these findings, because of what we already know about the obesity epidemic in this country and all the sedentary activities our children are partaking in with the use of video games, TV, the iPad and all of that,” she said.

“Parents need to change their thinking about outdoor play as a luxury that they can get in for their kids on a Saturday, to something along the lines of a necessity. Many preschoolers are not getting daily outdoor activities,” Briggs said. “We need to know that it has an important impact on our children’s physical health and also on their behavioral development.”

(SOURCES: Pooja Tandon, M.D., M.P.H., pediatrician and researcher, Seattle Children’s Research Institute, and acting assistant professor, department of pediatrics, University of Washington, Seattle; Rahil Briggs, Psy.D., child psychologist, Children’s Hospital at Montefiore, New York City; April 2, 2012, Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine online)

According to study findings presented at a recent meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Diego, if you want a healthy, whole grain treat make it popcorn.

Researchers found that popcorn has more healthy for you antioxidants called polyphenols than some fruits or vegetables. In every serving of popcorn there are 300 milligrams of polyphenols compared to 114 mg per serving of sweet corn and 160 mg per serving for all fruits. A big difference!

The study demonstrated that the levels of polyphenols in popcorn are higher than previously thought. The levels are similar to those levels found in a serving of  nuts and 15 times higher that the levels found in whole-grain tortilla chips.

The highest concentrations of polyphenols and fiber are found in the hulls of the popcorn; you know…those annoying little bits that get caught in teeth.

“Of course adding butter, salt and other calorie-laden flavorings can turn this snack from healthy into unhealthy. Air-popped popcorn has the lowest number of calories,” one of the researchers reported. He added, “Microwave popcorn has twice as many calories as air-popped, and if you pop your own with oil, this has twice as many calories as air-popped popcorn. About 43 percent of microwave popcorn is fat, compared to 28 percent if you pop the corn in oil yourself.”

The study makes a point of stressing that one is not suggesting eating popcorn instead of fruits and vegetables, as popcorn lacks the vitamins and other nutrients found in fruits and vegetables that are essential for good health.

The study continues to promote popcorn as a snack as it is the only snack that is 100 percent unprocessed whole grain. One serving of popcorn will provide more than 70 percent of the daily intake of whole grain. The average person only gets about half a serving of whole grains a day. Eating popcorn could fill that gap in a way that most of us would enjoy.

The study was not funded by the food industry.

(SOURCE: American Chemical Society, news release, March 25, 2012)

More and more you see young children been pushed in carriages or riding in a car, while playing video games and watching movies on hand-held, digital devices.

Yes, it keeps them entertained. It also helps with eye-hand coordination and manual dexterity.

Yet, pediatricians and other child development specialists are warning about the excessive viewing and playing of video and computer games at the expense of needed daily physical activities and developing social skills that come from interacting with other children in community activities.

The commonly held belief is that children need a minimum of 60 minutes of physical activities each day.

According to a number of recent studies, many school-age children spend hours each day on their home computers and hand-held devices in non-academic activities. One such study, in the journal Pediatrics, which was supported by the National Institutes of Health, looked at the value of active video games as a way of making a child more active. The outcome of this research is no surprise…no, children were no more active while playing an active video game.

Dr. Tom Baranowski,  a professor of pediatrics at the Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital commented,”If Mama brings a video game home, can she expect that her child will get more physical activity, and the answer is, as far as we can tell, no. Parents who want to have their kids to be more physically active should enroll their children in school-based sports teams, and other kinds of physical activities.”

Computers and hand-held devices are here to stay and that is not a bad thing. We just need to decide how much time each day is a reasonable amount of time for our children to spend in recreational use on these digital wonders.