While she was recovering from abdominal surgery, Emily sat in her hospital bed and watched late night comedy shows. “I had to change channels,” she said. “I was laughing so hard I was afraid I was going to tear open all my stitches.”
Laughter is uniquely human; no other species laughs in the same way humans do. And doctors have long believed that laughter is good medicine–as long as you don’t laugh hard enough to rip out your stitches.
When Norman Cousins, a prominent New York journalist, was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, a painful and incurable inflammatory disease, he found in laughter a relief he was unable to get from pain medications. In his best-selling 1979 book, Anatomy of an Illness, Cousins describes how he used comedy tapes plus vitamin C to battle his illness. Ten minutes of good laughter, he discovered, could give him two hours or more of pain-free sleep.
Perhaps in part because of Cousins’ influence, laughter has become the subject of a number of medical studies, most of which have confirmed the health benefits.
In the most obvious sense, laughter is exercise. If Emily is laughing hard enough to threaten the stitches in her abdomen, she is also laughing hard enough to get blood flowing through her arteries.
A good laugh, depending on how hearty it is, gives a workout to the muscles in your diaphragm, abdomen, chest, face, legs and back. Some researchers have estimated that laughing 100 times is comparable to spinning your legs for 15 minutes on an exercise bike.
In terms of calories, of course, you’ll need to laugh most of the day if you’re expecting to lose significant weight.
Raises Heart Rate
Probably more important, laughing raises the heart rate more than most common activities. Researcher William Fry found that, it took him 10 minutes on a rowing machine to reach the heart rate achieved with one minute of laughter.
Frequent surges in heart rate help keep blood vessels pliable and healthy. Negative or stressful emotions, on the other hand, have been found to constrict blood vessels, even to the point of bringing on a heart attack in a susceptible individual.
A University of Maryland study found that heart disease patients were 40 percent less likely than others to react with laughter–rather than anger or hostility–to a variety of every day situations.
And another University of Maryland study may have explained why. Researchers tested the blood flow of 20 healthy male and female subjects after watching two film clips–the violent opening battle scene from “Saving Private Ryan” and a humorous scene from the comedy “Kingpin.” Immediately after the stressful scene, overall blood flow in the subjects decreased by 35 percent; after the comedy scene, blood flow increased by 22 percent.
The hormones released by the body in reaction to stress–such as cortisol and adrenalin–are designed to help prepare a person for fight or flight. When they are elevated over a long period of time, they tend to suppress the immune system, raise blood pressure and increase the number of platelets in the blood, increasing the risk of a clot forming in a coronary artery.
Following laughter, it’s believed (although not proven) that the body is flooded with pleasure-producing hormones such as endorphins, also known for their role in producing “runner’s high.” Because they are natural pain killers, these endorphins may well have given Norman Cousins the relief that medical pain killers could not.
Some studies have also shown an increase in disease fighting cells from the immune system following laughter. And a study of 19 diabetic patients found that they had lower blood sugar levels after watching a comedy compared to watching a boring lecture.
Nearly all of these studies were small, and it’s difficult to determine cause and effect in such situations. Some people who tend to laugh a lot may have relatively few health and other problems to bring them down.
A benefit of laughter that cannot be denied, however, is its role in social interaction. According to cultural anthropologists, laughter may have originated as a way of forming or strengthening social bonds within a group. In years gone by, the court jester was an important court figure; when the boss (or king) laughs, everyone laughs.
For most Americans today, laughter doesn’t come primarily from jokes or comedy shows but from interaction with family and friends. And it has a way of rubbing off on others, making it easier to affiliate and connect. At any age, these connections are essential to maintaining good physical as well as mental health.
The person who laughs is bound to have a strong circle of friends and family. And the person with a strong support circle is usually healthier than one who is lonely and angry.
When stressful events, illness or death enter the picture, humor can be a way of dealing with adversity. Rx Laughter is a non-profit group founded at UCLA in 1998 to help children deal with pain caused by cancer, orthopedic injury, arthritis, severe wounds or burns.
As part of an individualized treatment plan, the Rx Laughter team carefully chooses comic videos designed to boost immune function, reduce pain, speed healing and improve quality of life. They also record their results to add to the growing body of laughter research.
In some hospitals in Australia, Clown Doctors (who are professional performers rather than physicians) make their rounds with the goal of bringing play, humor and laughter to patients, family and staff. Clowning in hospitals is not a new concept; it has been used in places such as Turkey for centuries.
In parts of Indonesia, there is a discipline that involves consciously laughing and continuing until your fake laughter turns into a genuine one. Similar techniques are now being explored by some American therapists.
The Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor (aath.org), formed in 1987, is a group of health care professionals and researchers seeking to “advance the understanding and application of humor and laughter for their positive benefits.” The organization is not one to exaggerate the benefits of laughter; on its home page is a fact sheet outlining “what we don’t know yet” about laughter as well as “what we know.”
Until more benefits are documented, the attitude of most professionals is that a hearty belly laugh never hurt anyone...except someone recovering from abdominal surgery.
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