LAUGHTER
IS THE BEST MEDICINE

 Laughter is a healer, thousands of years ago Solomon wrote his famous Proverbs, among them, he said, “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones”.

Norman Cousins, a well-known writer for Saturday Review, was diagnosed in 1964 as having a serious disease involving the connective tissues. He was also told by a specialist that his chances for survival were one in 500 and that he had little time to live. But Cousins’ will to live was strong, so he decided to assume most of the responsibility for his own healing. He designed a programme which required daily use of all the positive emotions. Among them were faith, love and hope. Cousins said these were easy compared to the other one he knew that had to be part of his healing: Laughter. How do you laugh when you’ve been told you have an irreversible disease and don’t have long to live?

But laugh he did. Cousins developed a systematic programme for getting daily doses of hearty laughter. He started by watching reruns of the old Candid Camera programmes. He then went on to Marx Brothers movies and anything else he could get his hands on that would make him laugh. Later, when eh wrote of this healing experiences in Anatomy of an Illness, Cousins said, “It worked. I made the joyous discovering that ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anaesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep.” Medical tests done since then have established that there is a physiological basis for the biblical theory that laughter is good medicine. As Josh Billings, a nineteenth century humorist, said, “There ain’t much fun in medicine, but there’s a heck of a lot of medicine in fun.”

Hal Urban, inspirational writer, in his book Life’s Greatest Lessons says: Cousins was one of the pioneers in linking laughter to healing.  Since his initial explorations, his research has been duplicated by many both in and out of the medical profession.  Best known among them are Dr Bernie Siegel and Dr Patch Adams.  Both have written extensively about the power of humour and hope in the healing process.  If you haven’t seen the movie Patch Adams, I highly recommend that you rent a copy.  It’s a little corny in spots, but otherwise heart warming, funny and based on scientific evidence.

Of all the gifts bestowed by nature on human beings,

hearty laughter must be close to the top – Norman Cousins

I have used laughter to shift my mood and it works.  I used to wake in a bad mood for no reason!  I could understand being in a mood if I’d had a nightmare, or I had dreamt about Rebecca and it reminded me how much I miss her but on one occasion, when I went to bed in an extremely positive mood and even noted, when I did wake during the night to turn over, that I still felt great, I couldn’t understand how I could wake up in a bad mood.

However, having read Anthony Robbins Awaken The Giant Within in which he tells the reader they have a choice as to how they feel, I decided not to let my moods dictate the tone of my day anymore – I used to let my awakening mood control my day and God help anyone who had to endure my mood too!  So I started to take action and one of the techniques was to find something funny to change my mood, one way was to listen to music, something that I knew made me smile and if I danced too, that certainly helped, particularly if it was silly dancing, or something outrageous which made Tom laugh too.  But I also made sure I had my favourite comedy DVD’s to hand, especially Catherine Tate and, just in case I wasn’t at home ie didn’t have access to a DVD player, I created some audio clips of my favourite sketches and downloaded them onto my mp3 player.  Fantastic!

One time I sat listening to some of Catherine Tate, I couldn’t help grinning, a big beaming smile on my face.  I was on a boat trip at the time, sailing from a Greek island, and a lady came over to comment on how much pleasure it gave her to see my smiling face – she obviously wondered what I had been listening to.  So not only did I improve my mood but I made someone else feel better too!

Read more from Dr Mercola below but here are some DVD's I recommend to get you laughing:

Why not create your own comedy and have a good singing session - use the above microphone connected to your iPod for a more professional performance!  Singing can raise your vibration and get you into a more positive frame of mind - create that feel good factor!

What Makes Laughter the Best Medicine?

Laughter has a real beneficial effect on your physical health, according to research. In the study, subjects were observed as they watched both serious movies and comedies. During the comedies, their arteries dilated and their blood pressure dropped, suggesting that laughter can in fact be a powerful medicine indeed.

The study looked at 20 healthy participants with an average age of 33. The results showed for the first time that laughter is linked to healthy function of blood vessels. It appears to cause the endothelium, which is the tissue that forms the inner lining of blood vessels, to dilate or expand in order to increase blood flow.

The study also showed that the opposite effect occurred when the subjects watched suspenseful films, suggesting a link between mental stress and the narrowing of blood vessels.

A separate study also found that viewing a humorous film may be helpful for the study and treatment of local IgE production and allergy in the reproductive tract. 

Sources:  

Finding Dulcinea April 1, 2009 

Journal Psychosomatic Research February 2009; 66(2):173-5 

It’s said that children laugh 100 times a day, sometimes more. But by the time we reach adulthood, we’re lucky if we laugh even a handful of times in a 24-hour period. This is a shame considering a good laugh can not only melt away stress almost instantly, but it has numerous beneficial impacts on your physical health, including a potential to help allergies and your heart.

The study by researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in  Baltimore mentioned above is one of the most groundbreaking in terms of laughter’s role in your health.

It actually shows that laughing may help reduce your risk of heart disease in ways similar to exercise. 

A Laughter “Workout

The researchers examined the connection between blood vessels' ability to expand (vasodilation) and laughter. If vasodilation is poor, it can increase your risk of heart attack and stroke. The study involved 20 adults who watched clips of a violent movie and a humorous movie and had their vasodilation tested.

They found that: 

• Blood flow was significantly reduced (by about 35 percent)
   in 14 of the 20 volunteers who saw the stressful film.

• Blood flow significantly increased (by 22 percent)
   in 19 of the 20 volunteers after watching the funny movie. 

The improvement in blood flow experienced by most all participants after laughter was equal to the improvements seen after a 15- or 30-minute workout! 

Why Else Should You Laugh More?  

The University of Maryland researchers believe laughing causes your body to release beneficial chemicals called endorphins, natural “pain killers” that contribute to your sense of well-being and may counteract the effects of stress hormones and cause blood vessels to dilate.

Previous research has even found that just anticipating laughter can increase your endorphin levels, whereas laughing may help boost your immune system and reduce inflammation in your body, which is linked to a variety of diseases.

Japanese researchers have also found a role for laughter in helping people with type 2 diabetes, as there was a significantly smaller spike in blood sugar after a meal when diabetics watched a popular comedy show compared to listening to a boring lecture.

Other benefits of laughing include:
  

• Relaxation and reduction in muscle tension
• Lowered production of stress hormones
• Improved immune system function
• Reduction in blood pressure
• Clearing your lungs by dislodging mucous plugs
• Increasing the production of salivary immunoglobulin A, which
  defends against infectious organisms that enter through your
  respiratory tract
• Aerobic effects that increase your body‘s ability to utilize oxygen
• A rapid ability to disregard aches and pains or to perceive them
  as less severe 

Laughing is Only One Part
of Staying Positive

When you laugh, you’re helping yourself to stay positive, and that is really the name of the game when it comes to your health and happiness. People with a positive outlook are typically easy to spot; they’re the ones who are quick to smile and laugh, don’t take themselves too seriously and are generally a joy to be around.

They’re also the ones who are most likely to be leading great lives, as research has proven that happy people live longer, are healthier, are more successful, enjoy more fulfilling relationships, earn more money, and are liked and respected more.

But even happy people know they don‘t get to be happy all the time, so they learn to appreciate brief moments, little victories, small miracles, and the personal interactions that bring real happiness. And when they do face a setback, they know how to quickly address their negative emotions using tools like the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT).

For most people, though, it is very difficult to define what truly makes you happy. So I want to reiterate a definition that you can grasp and apply to your life with greater ease.

Happiness can be identified as “whatever gets you excited.” Happiness is that which makes you jump out of bed in the morning with eager anticipation to start your day. Once you identify that activity, whatever it is, you can start focusing your mind around that so you can structure you life to do more of it.

As you begin to do this, you’ll find you have an easier time laughing and smiling more often, and this is quite contagious. The more you are happy, the easier it becomes and the better you’ll feel.

Even if you‘re not feeling happy today, fake it. In experiments, people who were manipulated to smile actually felt happier.

Besides, what have you got to lose? Put a smile on your face and find reasons to laugh each and every day. Who knows, you may just start to enjoy life after all. 

  
Related Links:   

Do the Health Benefits of Humor and Laughter Have Scientific
Support?

Laughter Makes Breast Milk Healthier

Laugh Your Way to Normal Blood Sugars

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