Doctor's orders? ‘Belly laugh at least two to five days a week'

Melanin Bee curves her spine like a stretching cat as she lets out a maniacal, forced laugh.

The quick-fire pattern of manufactured giggles —“oh, hoo hoo hoo, eeh, ha ha ha”— soon ripples into genuine laughter, and she giddily kicks her feet.

She’s practicing what she calls Laughasté, a hilarious yoga routine she created that is a descendant of “laughter clubs” that emerged in India in the 1990s. It feels awkward at first, but you fake it till you make it, she said.

“It’s about allowing yourself to be OK with being awkward,” said Bee, a Los Angeles comedian and speaker. “Then you’re going to find some form of silliness within that is going to allow you to laugh involuntarily.”

The laughter clubs were based on the common-sense notion that laughter relieves stress. But a good laugh is also good for your heart, immune system and many other health benefits, said Dr. Michael Miller, a cardiologist and medical professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

“Like we say, exercise at least three to five days a week,” Miller said. “Belly laugh at least two to five days a week.”

Although luminaries from the ancient Greeks to Freud have opined on the roots and implications of laughter, the modern study of laughter — gelotology — began emerging in the 1960s.

Stanford University psychologist William F. Fry, one of gelotology’s founders, drew blood samples from himself while watching Laurel and Hardy. He discovered that laughter increased the number of immune-boosting blood cells.

In 1995, Dr. Madan Kataria, a physician in Mumbai, got wind of the emerging research as editor of a health magazine while researching an article on stress management. To combat his own stress, he started the first daily laughter club in a park. It ballooned from a handful of participants to more than 150 within a month, he said.

After the group quickly ran out of jokes, Kataria created exercises that activated the diaphragm, and he incorporated yogic breathing exercises, light stretches and deliberately silly sounds and movements.

“We were faking in the beginning and within seconds, everybody was in stitches,” Kataria said.

Miller began studying laughter in the 1990s. Showing funny movies to study participants, he found that laughter produces endorphins in the brain that promote beneficial chemicals in the blood vessels. Nitric oxide, for example, causes blood vessels to dilate, which lowers blood pressure, inflammation and cholesterol.

The combination reduces the risk for a heart attack, he said, and the endorphins are natural pain killers.

“When you’ve had a really good laugh, you feel very relaxed and light,” said Miller, who is also chief of medicine at the Philadelphia Veterans Administration, where he is implementing a laughter therapy program. “It’s like you’ve taken pain medication.”

Forced laughter — or simulated mirth, in academia — may even be more beneficial than spontaneous laughter, said Jenny Rosendhal, a senior researcher of medical psychology at Jena University in Germany.

Rosendhal completed a meta-analysis of 45 laughter studies, among other research, and found that laughter-inducing therapies decreased glucose levels, the stress hormone cortisol and chronic pain. They also improved mobility and overall mood, especially in older populations.

Because humor is subjective, it is hard to measure. That’s why much of the more recent research has focused on laughter yoga and similar programs that provoke sustained bouts of laughter during 30- to 45-minute sessions, Rosendhal said.

Laughter yoga is particularly effective for people who might not feel like laughing, such as those struggling with depression or cancer patients, she said. With simulated laughter, the physiological mechanisms are the same, such as additional inhaling, exhaling and muscle activity that also improves mood.

“The well-being comes through the back door,” she said. “You start with an exercise, and then the spontaneous laughter comes later because it’s funny to see people laughing.”

During a recent video call, Kataria said the trick is to learn to laugh for no reason. He and others in laughing yoga classes around the world have created hundreds of exercises that help.

The simplest: Get together with another person, look in each other’s eyes and repeat the sound “ha” for a full minute. Or try the “breathe in and laugh.” Bring your hands to your chest on a deep inhale, hold your breath for three seconds, and burst out laughing on the exhale while extending your hands forward.

In laughing yoga classes, people may pretend to greet each other like aliens, crawl around like their favorite animals, or tap their temple as if a light bulb went off, exclaiming, “Aha! ha ha ha!”

Kataria suggested bringing laughter into your daily life, even at things that might not seem funny. Demonstrating “credit card bill laughter,” he held out his hand as if looking at a statement, and burst into a roiling, infectious laughter. For inspiration, you could log into one of the three dozen free online American laughter clubs recognized by Laughter Yoga International.

“Really, it’s not about forcing yourself to laugh,” he said. “It’s like activating your laughter muscles, getting rid of your mental inhibitions and shyness. Then the real laughing is childlike laughing, unconditional laughing.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Albert Stumm writes about wellness, food and travel. Find his work at https://www.albertstumm.com

FILE - Model Eva Herzigova laughs as she attends the final Jean Paul Gaultier Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2020 fashion collection presented on Jan. 22, 2020, in Paris. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, File)

FILE - Class members participate in a laughter yoga class on Main Beach in Laguna Beach, Calif., Nov. 29, 2006. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson, File)

FILE - Members of laughter clubs participate in a laughter competition for the elderly to celebrate World Laughter Day in Mumbai, India, May 6, 2007. (AP Photo/Gautam Singh, File)

FILE - A woman wearing star-shaped glasses smiles during a campaign rally for former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Oct. 29, 2022. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File)

(AP Illustration / Peter Hamlin)

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche on Sunday defended the Justice Department’s decision to release just a fraction of the Jeffrey Epstein files by the congressionally mandated deadline as necessary to protect survivors of sexual abuse by the disgraced financier.

Blanche pledged that the Trump administration eventually would meet its obligation required by law. But he stressed that the department was obligated to act with caution as it goes about making public thousands of documents that can include sensitive information.

Friday's partial release of the Epstein files has led to a new crush of criticism from Democrats who have accused the Republican administration of trying to hide information.

Blanche called that pushback disingenuous as President Donald Trump's administration continues to struggle with calls for greater transparency, including from members of his political base, about the government’s investigations into Epstein, who once counted Trump as well as several political leaders and business titans among his peers.

“The reason why we are still reviewing documents and still continuing our process is simply that to protect victims,” Blanche told NBC's "Meet the Press." “So the same individuals that are out there complaining about the lack of documents that were produced on Friday are the same individuals who apparently don’t want us to protect victims.”

Blanche's comments were the most extensive by the administration since the file dump, which included photographs, interview transcripts, call logs, court records and other documents. But some of the most consequential records expected about Epstein were nowhere to be found, such as FBI interviews with survivors and internal Justice Department memos examining charging decisions. Those records could help explain how investigators viewed the case and why Epstein was allowed in 2008 to plead guilty to a relatively minor state-level prostitution charge.

Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years before the two had a falling-out, tried for months to keep the records sealed. Though Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, he has argued there is nothing to see in the files and that the public should focus on other issues.

Federal prosecutors in New York brought sex trafficking charges against Epstein in 2019, but he killed himself in jail after his arrest.

But Democratic lawmakers on Sunday hammered Trump and the Justice Department for a partial release.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., argued that the Justice Department is obstructing the implementation of the law mandating the release of the documents not because it wants to protect the Epstein victims.

“It’s all about covering up things that, for whatever reason, Donald Trump doesn’t want to go public, either about himself, other members of his family, friends, Jeffrey Epstein, or just the social, business, cultural network that he was involved in for at least a decade, if not longer," he said on CNN's “State of the Union.”

Blanche also defended the department's decision to remove several files related to the case from its public webpage, including a photograph showing Trump, less than a day after they were posted.

The missing files, which were available Friday but no longer accessible by Saturday, included images of paintings depicting nude women, and one showed a series of photographs along a credenza and in drawers. In that image, inside a drawer among other photos, was a photograph of Trump, alongside Epstein, Melania Trump and Epstein’s longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwell.

Blanche said the documents were removed because they also showed victims of Epstein. Blanche said that Trump photo and the other documents will be reposted once redactions are made to protect survivors.

“It has nothing to do with President Trump,” Blanche said. “There are dozens of photos of President Trump already released to the public seeing him with Mr. Epstein.”

The thousands of Epstein-related records posted publicly offer the most detailed look yet at nearly two decades worth of government scrutiny of Epstein’s sexual abuse of young women and underage girls. Yet Friday's release, replete with redactions, has not dulled the clamor for information given how many records had yet to be released and because some of the materials had already been made public.

Blanche said that the department continues to review the trove of documents and has learned the names of additional potential victims in recent days.

The deputy attorney general also defended the decision by the federal Bureau of Prisons, which Blanche oversees, to transfer Maxwell to a less restrictive, minimum-security federal prison earlier this year soon after he interviewed her about Epstein. Blanche said that the transfer was made because of concerns about her safety.

Maxwell, Epstein's onetime girlfriend, is serving a 20-year federal prison sentence for her 2021 conviction for sex trafficking crimes.

“She was suffering numerous and numerous threats against her life,” Blanche said. “So the BOP is not only responsible for putting people in jail and making sure they stay in jail, but also for their safety.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., have indicated they could draft articles of impeachment against Attorney General Pam Bondi for what they see as the gross failure of the department to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

“It’s not about the timeline, it’s about the selective concealment,” Khanna said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” adding that the redactions in the released files are excessive. He said he believes there will be "bipartisan support in holding her accountable, and a committee of Congress should determine whether these redactions are justified or not."

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said on ABC's “This Week” that there needs “to be a full and complete explanation and then a full and complete investigation as to why the document production has fallen short of what the law clearly required,” but he stopped short of backing impeachment.

Blanche dismissed the impeachment talk.

“Bring it on,” Blanche said. “We are doing everything we’re supposed to be doing to comply with this statute.”

Gómez Licón reported from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

FILE - Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche speaks during an event with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House, Oct. 15, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/John McDonnell, file)