The muscular exertions involved in laughter make you feel good

Laughter is regularly promoted as a source of health and well being, but it has been hard to pin down exactly why laughing until it hurts feels so good.

The answer, reports Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary psychologist at Oxford, is not the intellectual pleasure of cerebral humor, but the physical act of laughing. The simple muscular exertions involved in producing the familiar ha, ha, ha, he said, trigger an increase in endorphins, the brain chemicals known for their feel-good effect.

How to select right amount of weight/sets/reps for your goal. 1RM - is the maximum amount of weight you can lift (via Strength training - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) via quora Variable Training goal Strength Power Hypertrophy Endurance Load (% of 1RM) 80-90 45-55 60-80 40-60 Reps per set 1-5 1-5 6-12 15-60 Sets per exercise 4-7 3-5 4-8 2-4 Rest between sets (mins) 2-6 2-6 2-5 1-2 Duration (seconds per set) 5-10 4-8 20-60 80-150 Speed per rep (% of max) 60-100 90-100 60-90 60-80 Training sessions per week 3-6 3-6 5-7 8-14
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How to select right amount of weight/sets/reps for your goal.

1RM - is the maximum amount of weight you can lift

(via Strength training - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

via quora

Variable Training goal

Strength Power Hypertrophy Endurance

Load (% of 1RM) 80-90 45-55 60-80 40-60

Reps per set 1-5 1-5 6-12 15-60

Sets per exercise 4-7 3-5 4-8 2-4

Rest between sets (mins) 2-6 2-6 2-5 1-2

Duration (seconds per set) 5-10 4-8 20-60 80-150

Speed per rep (% of max) 60-100 90-100 60-90 60-80

Training sessions per week 3-6 3-6 5-7 8-14


try to “inflate” your stomach as you breathe in, while keeping your chest relatively still. Then contract your abdominal muscles on the exhale. Not only will this give you more oxygen per breath, it will eventually strengthen the diaphragm. A stronger diaphragm means you get more oxygen with each breath, so your brain won’t need to divert any away from your muscles, meaning that you get tired less easily. … A study on cardiac patients showed that this type of breathing leads to improved exercise performance and decreased shortness of breath, and it’s also been linked to lower blood pressure. This is the reason that so many coaches recommend breathing practice as a shortcut to sports-based superpowers.
When upright, most people are habitual chest breathers: We use a shallow form of respiration that makes use of only the top part of the lungs. In reality, most of the blood vessels that take up oxygen are in the bottom, neglected half. Since so much lung power is going to waste, we get less oxygen, and as a result, we’re all breathing more rapidly than nature intended us to.
Chest breathing also tends to upset the blood’s oxygen/carbon dioxide balance and can lead to headaches, fatigue, anxiety and even panic attacks. According to one expert, you’re also potentially suffering from sweaty palms, difficulty relaxing, heightened pain perception and general fatigue.
7 Basic Things You Won’t Believe You’re All Doing Wrong | Cracked.com

Will Sleeping on Your Side Reduce Snoring?

Snoring occurs when your throat muscles relax during sleep, your tongue falls backward toward your throat and the walls of your throat vibrate, leading to the familiar sounds of a snore. It’s a common notion, then, that most people only snore when they sleep on their back, as this is what allows your tongue to collapse into the back of your throat and obstruct breathing.

In fact, sleeping on your back can lead to snoring in some people — the New York Times reported one study found that 54 percent of snorers were “positional snorers,” which means they only snored while sleeping on their backs. So switching to your side while sleeping is a simple trick to try if snoring is interfering with your, or your partner’s, sleep — but it likely won’t work for everyone.

Causes of snoring:

  • Aging, which leads to increased relaxation of the throat muscles
  • Obesity (particular having a lot of fatty tissue around the neck)
  • Anatomical abnormalities of the nose and throat (enlarged tonsils or adenoids, nasal polyps, or deviated nasal septum)
  • Functional abnormalities (such as inflammation of the nose or throat due to allergies)
  • Drinking alcohol before bed, as alcohol is a potent muscle relaxant, or taking muscle relaxants in the evening

You actually can get large muscles from lifting light weights. Here’s how:

It turns out that lifting a weight that’s 90% of the maximum weight you can lift until you can’t lift any more (failure) is less effective at muscle building than lifting a weight that’s 30% of the maximum weight you can lift until you can’t life any more (failure). It turns out you lift the lighter weight a lot more times and that builds more muscle. here is that study: via

We report for the first time that low-load high volume resistance exercise (30FAIL) is more effective at increasing muscle protein synthesis than high-load low volume resistance exercise (90FAIL). Specifically, the 30FAIL protocol induced similar increases in MYO protein synthesis to that induced by the 90FAIL protocol at 4 h post-exercise but this response was sustained at 24 h only in 30FAIL. …  There were three groups: 90% 1RM to failure (90FAIL), 30% 1RM which matched the external work to the 90FAIL group (30WM), and 30% 1RM to failure (30FAIL). 

The fact is that most people when lifting a light weight don’t lift it enough times to reach failure, so that’s probably why this study is a bit counter intuitive.
The reality is if you push yourself to near failure any weight and rep combination, you’ll likely get results.