“The arrival of a good clown into a village does more for its health than 20 asses laden with drugs,” observed Thomas Sydenham, a seventeenth century British physician, who may have been the first doctor to recommend laughter as the best medicine.
We can all identify with the good feeling that comes from having a good session of laughing – made even richer by being with friends. Now research is showing the tremendous value of laughter and experts are taking the benefits of laughter seriously. Did you know that three minutes of deep belly laughing is the equivalent of three minutes on a fitness rowing machine?
Nowadays, not only is it common knowledge that laughter has all sorts of physical and mental health benefits, there’s even an organization called the Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor, which is made up of more than 600 doctors and healthcare professionals who study the effects of humor on humans. Here’s what they are discovering.
1. Laughter decrease stress hormones
2. Laughter increases the activity of natural killer cells that go after tumor cells
3. It’s been shown to also boost the immune system
4. Laughing increases your heart rate, blood flow to brain, respiratory rate, and your lungs expand – almost like jogging only you don’t have to leave the house!
5. Laughter increases your alertness, memory, and your ability to learn and create by increasing the production of catecholmanines.
6. Deep down belly Laughter releases anti-depressant mood chemicals.
So with all their prods and wires and gizmos and gauges, professionals are telling us what we knew all along: when we laugh we feel better.
And there are other benefits as well. Laughter is good social glue. It connects us to others and counteracts feelings of alienation and helps us feel more connected.
Want to be more creative? Try laughing more. Humor loosens up the mental gears and encourages looking at things from a different, out-of-the-ordinary perspective.
Besides spackling together our conversations and relieving tension, humor and laughter are coping mechanisms. They provide distance and perspective when situation are otherwise horrible. Laughter is one way to dissipate hurt and pain.
So how do we inoculate ourselves with laughter?
Humor guru William Fry, M.D. professor emeritus of psychiatry at Stanford University recommends this two-step process.
1. Figure out what makes you laugh – your humor profile by listening to yourself for a few days to see what makes you laugh out loud. Do your heartiest guffaws come from watching Moe, Larry and Curly? Or to you respond to more sophisticated French farces?
2. Then start building your own humor library: books, videos, movies etc. If possible, have a special corner to house your collection. Then, when life gets you down, don’t hesitate to visit. “Even a few minutes of Laughter will provide some value.
So what makes you laugh? For me, I like to watch America’s Funniest Home Videos. As silly as some of them can be, I find myself laughing out loud - - and it feels good.
