Laughter is the Best Medicine
Sep 4th, 2007 by Dave
The knowledge that laughter is the best medicine has been around for a while but it doesn’t hurt to reiterate how beneficial laughing can be to your well-being.
Humour therapy has been around for generations but only started being popularized in the 70s; Norman Cousins, who was suffering from a chronic form of arthritis, recorded how he managed to have two hours of drug-free pain relief by laughing for ten minutes; he apparently got his kicks from watching Candid Camera and Marx Brothers’ films.
Laughter can benefit your health in the following ways:
• lower blood pressure
• reduce stress hormones like cortisol and epinephrine
• release endorphins
• strengthen your immune system
• improve your general mood and promote positive thinking
Strangely enough, studies have also shown that the effects of smiling occur even whether or not the smile is sincere!
I hve a dear friend who has Chron’s Disease. It had progressed to a point where the once 140 pound woman barely weighed 100 pounds and eating became a serious challenge. Her life was spent in pain and failing to live. The months prior to the deterioration, he middle son was in a riding lawn mower accident and lost half of his foot, and the capability of walking. The stress in her life was so great, there seemed to be no chance she would survive twelve months. Then it happened - a simple conversation about all the discouraging events taking lace in her life and I cracked a smile and filled her with a humorous recount of how I became involved with someone after I had sworn to being single the rest of my life. It was in that conversation she began to laugh. I hadn’t heard her laugh that loud since before my son passed away years prior.
At the end of that conversation on the phone, she told me how wonderful it was to speak with me, as her spirits were lifted unlike they had been in years. I suggested she refer back to my foux-pas with dating, or the lack there of, when she needed a smile.
Today, she’s managed to gain back about 15 of the pounds she lost, continues to live her life and even home-schools her two children. Her son, is a real trooper, by the way. He now has a prosthetic limb and even plays tennis!
Laughter truly is a miracle!
[…] like laughter releases certain hormones; mediation can increase serotonin levels, which have a positive influence […]