Experts Take the Benefits of Laughter Seriously

“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.  Maybe you know some current day clowns and asses, and that alone makes you laugh.  Or cry even! 
 
But laughter is soooo much more fun! 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. The AATH is made up of more than 600 doctors and health care professionals, who study the effects of humor on humans. Here is what they are discovering:
 
• Laughter decreases the amount of stress hormones in the body and increases the activity of natural killer cells that go after tumor cells.
• It activates the cells that boost the immune system and increases levels of immune system hormones that fight viruses.
• Three minutes of deep belly laughing is the equivalent of three minutes on a fitness rowing machine. (I choose belly laughing!)
• It takes 17 muscles to smile and 43 to frown.
• A child in kindergarten is laughing some 300 times a day. One study found that a typical adult laughs a paltry 17 times a day.
• When you laugh, your heart rate goes up. You increase the blood flow to the brain, which increases oxygen. Laughter increases your respiratory rate and as your lungs expand, you breathe faster. It’s almost like jogging (how does it get even better than that?!!!) only you never have to leave the house.
• With laughter, there is an increased production of catecholmanines (fabulous spelling bee word!). This increases the level of alertness, memory, and ability to learn and create. 
• When you have a deep-down belly laugh, the kind that shakes you, it releases anti-depressant mood chemicals (sad no more!).
• After you laugh, you go into a relaxed state. Your blood pressure and heart rate drop below normal, so you feel profoundly relaxed.
 
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.
 
Laughter is good social glue, too. It connects us to others and counteracts feelings of alienation. That is why telling a joke, particularly one that illuminates a shared experience or problems, increases our sense of belonging. 
 
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 situations are otherwise challenging. Laughter is one way to dissipate hurt and pain.  And when hurt and pain are reduced, we can more easily see different possibilities.  And more choices.  And that, my friends, allows for creating the life you truly desire with way more ease and joy and amusement!
           
Not sure where to start to create more Laughter?
Take a break every once in a while to amuse and delight yourself!
 
My new favorite channel on YouTube is the Ellen Show.  Check out this video with Jennifer Aniston.  Or this hilarious video!  
 
Laughter filled moments are all around us.  Seek them out.  Create them.  And enjoy the lighter side of living while healing yourself and the world!
 

Author’s content used under license, © 2008 Claire Communications