Healing with Humor: Those Who Laugh, Last
(Page 2 of 3)
Dec. 5, 2008
By Michael Castleman
Laughter is nature’s own ho-ho-holistic medicine. Scientists are not sure why we smile and laugh, but smiling and laughter are innate and presumably confer some evolutionary survival advantage. In one study, researchers rated the dispositions of a group of medical students, then followed them for 25 years. By age 50, 14 percent of those rated “hostile” had died, but among those rated “easygoing,” the death rate was only 2 percent.
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Babies start smiling when only a few weeks old, and typically laugh by nine weeks. At four months, healthy non-abused babies laugh several times an hour, and they keep it up until adults tell them to “get serious.”
Adults often go days or weeks without laughing. Some people seem to lose the ability to laugh and need help relearning it.
Psychiatrist William Fry, M.D., professor emeritus at Stanford and an expert on the physiology of mirth, notes that a hearty laugh exercises a surprisingly large number of muscles. He estimates that 100 hearty laughs provide a workout equivalent to about 10 minutes on a rowing machine. He especially recommends laughter to those who are bed-ridden or unable to exercise.
Laughter also stimulates respiration, which increases the blood’s oxygen content, helping all body systems work more efficiently. Hearty laughter also reduces blood pressure and triggers a wave a relaxation.
Like other exercise, laughter releases endorphins, the body’s own feel-good, pain-relieving chemicals.
Researchers at Allegheny College in Pennsylvania, subjected volunteers to increasingly painful electric shocks while watching one of two videos — a program about gardening or a comedy routine. Participants could turn off the shocks when they became “too painful.” You can guess which group withstood more discomfort.
Humor also enhances immune function. Psychologist Kathleen Dillon, Ph.D., of Western New England College in Springfield, Mass., measured immunoglobulin A (IgA), an antibody in the mouth that fights colds, in healthy volunteers before and after they viewed two videos: a lecture about anxiety and the comedy, Richard Pryor Live. After the former, IgA levels showed no change. But after the comedy, IgA levels increased.
How to Bring More Humor into Your Life
“The arrival of a good clown exercises more beneficial influence upon the health of a town than 20 donkeys laden with drugs.” — Thomas Sydenham, 17th century English physician
Why don’t we laugh more? Because we’ve learned not to. Parents and teachers tell children: “Stop acting silly.” And “Wipe that smile off your face.”
In addition, laughter requires both spontaneity and surrender of control. As people become adults, they feel ambivalent about spontaneity and place increasing value on self-control.
But mature adults benefit from levity. When Steven Spielberg was filming the Holocaust drama Schindler’s List, he became so saddened while on location in Poland that he called comedian Robin Williams and asked him to run through some stand-up routines.
