So Laughing at Passover Seder Helps You Lose Weight?

For my family the Passover Seder, which starts tonight, is a time of great joy. It's our favorite holiday as we sit around and laugh. As I was growing up I was lucky enough to have both my grandparents and my great-grandparents around to celebrate holidays. During the Seder my grandfather sat at one end and raced his father to see who could read Hebrew faster. And the kids were all allowed to have wine... so all we did was laugh.

A new study out of Vanderbilt University Medical Center showed that laughing raises energy expenditure and increases the heart rate by 10%-20%.

As far weight loss goes, laughing for 10 minutes a day could burn 10 to 40 calories a day.

If you were to burn 40 calories every day laughing, you’d burn 14,600 calories or about four pounds’ worth over the course of a year!

Who knew?