Laughter is Good Medicine

Here's an article that reminds us of that fact... I watch or listen to some comedy every day- I have my digital video recorder save all the Conan O'Brien shows and then watch them during dinner, or in the evening before bed. What do you do for laughs?


By LINDSAY TAUB

Perhaps one remedy to combat pain and stress was written in an ancient proverb - ‘‘A merry heart doeth good like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones.’’

Nearly 3,000 years later, doctors and health professionals are discovering - and touting - the benefits of laughter.

Studies have shown:

— Laughter is preventative medicine. It can improve blood flow, which over time may protect against heart disease.

—Levels of stress hormones went down when laughter increased, leading to a boost in the immune system.

—Laughing also reduces depression and improves self-confidence.

Physiologically, when a person laughs, every organ is stimulated. As with any aerobic activity, it increases heart rate and circulation, exercises the lungs, facial muscles and diaphragm, said Dr. Michael Miller, who was the principal researcher on a recent study at the University of Maryland Medical Center. These findings recommend a 15-minute gut buster a day.

Researchers showed 20 adults two movie scenes - one from the comedy ‘‘Kingpin,’’ the other a battle scene from ‘‘Saving Private Ryan’’ - while monitoring artery function. After viewing the funny clip, subjects’ blood

vessels dilated by 22 percent; they constricted by 35 percent after the war sequence. Dilation allows blood to move through the vessels with ease, taking strain off the heart and arteries.

‘‘That magnitude of change is similar to what you’d get from aerobic exercise,’’ Miller said. Laughter may trigger the release of nitric oxide, a chemical that relaxes blood cells, he said. It may also release endorphins, hormones shown to be natural painkillers.

Props to ‘Patch’

Before there were laughter studies, however, Dr. Hunter Adams, in the early 1960s, treated each patient with a joke and a smile. He was the subject of the 1998 movie, ‘‘Patch Adams,’’ starring actor/comedian Robin Williams as the beadpan-on-the-head wearing doctor who also donned giant shoes and a clown nose in order to draw giggles from his patients.

Since then, the ‘‘laughter is the best medicine’’ concept became more tangible - in part due to the research of Drs. Lee S. Bark, Stanley Tan and William Fry. They showed through controlled scientific studies in the 1970s that laughter affects blood pressure and heart rate.

Fast-forward 30 years and there are 3,500 ‘‘laughter clubs’’ in existence, including one at the U.S. Pentagon and more than 2,500 certified ‘‘laughter leaders’’ from the World Laughter Tour, an organization that promotes wellness through laughter.

A laughter club is a group that usually meets weekly to practice a combination of routines that trigger laughter and yoga breathing - called yoga laughter.

Dr. Madan Kataria, an Indian physician, founded the movement in 1995, and it has grown worldwide. So inspired was psychologist Steve Wilson by Kataria that he brought the techniques back to the United States and founded the World Laughter Tour.

While Wilson echoes Kataria in saying ‘‘adults are not laughing nearly enough,’’ he said there is no scientific basis to support the statistic that children laugh 300 to 400 times a day, compared to 15 times a day for adults.

‘‘The numbers are symbolic and a way of showing that adults need to laugh more,’’ he said.

Wilson uses therapeutic laughter in his counseling practice. He was also the chairman of the Dept. of Mental Health and Retardation at Columbus State Community College in Ohio, where he has also taught since 1973.

The techniques Kataria taught Wilson in India were heavily yoga-based and might not have been acceptable in mainstream America, Wilson said.

‘‘It’s very easy in India for people to accept that something is a yoga practice,’’ Wilson said. ‘‘But here yoga is popular, but not part of our culture. It’s chic to go to yoga but the idea of it as spiritual and healing is still somewhat off-putting to some people.’’

To make the practice more accessible for the western world, Wilson said he refined the techniques, softened the spiritual talk and strengthened the physical focus. He also developed a training program for health professionals and therapists to become ‘‘certified laughter leaders.’’

‘‘The whole idea is where humor is psychological, laughter is physiological,’’ Wilson said. ‘‘We do playful exercises that recruit people into their own body mechanism, creating the possibility for endorphins to be released and consequently, a decrease in depression and anxiety.’’

Locally, Nancy Davis, a certified laughter leader, worked with a group at the West Acres Nursing Home in Brockton. She had a handful of residents flapping their arms, doing the chicken dance all in the name of relieving stress and having fun. Other techniques include walking like a penguin and walking over hot sand.

‘‘A lot of clubs will start up again after the first of the year,’’ Wilson said. ‘‘October, November and December, with all the holidays, are the emotional loaded months of the year, so people are going to need to laugh.’’

For more information and to find a certified laughter leader or laughter club in your area, visit worldlaughtertour.org.

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