Medical mysteries LAUGHTER IS THE BEST MEDICINE — REALLY!

I’ve always liked to laugh. In fact, laughter is one of my five favorite things to do. Drinking wine and eating are also in the top five. You can speculate about the other two. As much as I enjoy laughing, it’s always gotten me in trouble. When I was in high school, my stuffy English teacher never did understand why my terribly witty wisecracks weren’t more interesting than some dull tripe about Shakespeare and what Mark Antony had to say at his dead paisano’s funeral.

Later, when I was working for a living, I am relatively certain laughter cost me a raise — maybe a promotion. I was doing my dead-on, hilarious impression of the boss when you-know-who walked into the room.

All the trouble that laughter caused me over the years may have been well worth it. It turns out that I was getting healthier all the time.

“Laughter, it’s said, is the best medicine. And there’s lots of evidence that laughter does lots of good things for us,” Hara Estroff Marano writes in Psychology Today. Laughter “reduces pain and allows us to tolerate discomfort. It reduces blood sugar levels, increasing glucose tolerance in diabetics and non-diabetics,” the article says.

Best of all, Marano writes, “it acts on the inner lining of blood vessels, called the endothelium, causing vessels to relax and expand, increasing blood flow. In other words, it’s good for your heart and brain.”

The person most often cited in making the case that laughter is healthful is Dr. Michael Miller, associate professor of medicine and director of preventive cardiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

Dr. Miller says that his studies indicate that “laughing may be important to maintain a healthy endothelium and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. At the very least, laughter offsets the impact of mental stress, which is harmful to the endothelium.”

Older adults can especially benefit from a good laugh, according to a study by Dr. Melissa B. Wanzer, professor of communication studies at Canisius College in Buffalo, NY. Quoted in Science Daily, she says “aging adults who used humor more frequently reported great coping efficacy, which led to greater life satisfaction.”

Don’t think for a moment that laughing can get you off the hook from your usual exercise routine. “We don’t recommend that you laugh instead of exercise, but we do recommend that you try to laugh on a regular basis,”

Dr. Miller says. “Thirty minutes of exercise three times a week and 15 minutes of laughter on a daily basis are probably good for the vascular system.”

So, improve your health by yukking it up. Get out your Three Stooges tapes. Or watch The Big Bang Theory Or tell knock-knock jokes. Then do some jumping jacks.

Sources: Laughter: The Best Medicine; http://www.psychologytoday. com/articles/200504/laughter-the-best-medicine: Laughter is the “Best” Medicine for your Heart; http://www.umm.edu/features/laughter.htm: Laughter is the best medicine; http://www.sciencedaily.com/ releases/2008/01/080124200913.htm (Accessed February 28, 2012)