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Erickson Tribune - Not feeling well? Start laughing!

04/19/2007 06:10 PM

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A sense of humor is essential to feeling better

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Posted on Sunday, April 15, 2007

By Wendy J. Meyeroff THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE

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Not feeling well? Start laughing!

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UPDATED: Tuesday, April 17, 2007

HEALTH SECRETS

Okay, this isn’t the most sophisticated joke you ever heard. It may have even made you groan. But admit it: this wisecrack from comedian Henny Youngman, known in his time as the “King of the One-Liners,” made you smile, right?

HEALTH SECRETS

And while you were smiling, didn’t you feel better… even if only for a moment?

An author sparks laughter therapy An active debate has been going on as to whether or not laughter, in and of itself, is a health aid. Officially, laughter therapy seems to have been inspired around 1976 by famed author Norman Cousins.

Diagnosed with a devastatingly severe condition (and just a few months to live), Cousins decided if negative attitudes could enhance illness’s unhealthy effects, positive thoughts could help make him better. So he checked himself into a hotel and spent hours watching Marx brothers movies.

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For Cousins, every ten minutes of solid laughter brought two hours of painfree sleep. He continued his routine until he recovered— and wrote an article about it for the New England Journal of Medicine.

Fighting pain?

Last spring, Lee Berk, Dr. P.H., an associate professor at Loma Linda University’s School of Public Health, conducted a study related to Cousins’ experience. Instead of measuring the effect a funny movie had on people, he found that just anticipating laughter can provide physical benefits.

Some people in the study were told three days in advance they were going to see a funny movie (with their choice of movie). Before the movie started, blood drawn from these people showed they already had a 27% increase in hormones called beta-endorphins. Betaendorphins are powerful, but natural, pain suppressants.

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Erickson Tribune - Not feeling well? Start laughing!

04/19/2007 06:10 PM

Boosting heart health Michael Miller, M.D., director of preventive cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center, carried Cousins’ experience into fighting heart disease. “It seemed logical that if there is a link between negative emotions and heart disease, there was the possibility that positive emotions might play a protective role,” Miller says.

So Miller and his colleagues divided people into two groups: one group viewed a movie designed to cause mental stress, the other saw a comedy. “In almost everyone watching the comedy, the inner lining of the arteries known as the endothelium expanded. The potential benefits for this effect include better blood flow and reduced blood platelets, preventing the clumping that causes blockages,” he says.

Although the study population of his group was small, Miller believes the results bear noticing because they were so dramatically different between the two groups. “The group that was laughing showed positive cardiovascular changes, the kind of benefits that might be compared to doing aerobics— without the wear and tear on their bodies,” he says.

Boosting the immune system More than a decade ago, Berk was part of a team that found exposure to humor increased activity in the body’s immune system. Specifically, it showed that laughter: • Increased the number and activity level of the natural killer cells designed to attack “bad” cells, like cancer.

• Increased the antibody known as IgA, which fights upper respiratory tract infections.

• Increased the levels of gamma interferon, a protein that activates various components of the immune system.

It’s partly because of studies like this that Randolph Schiffer, M.D., chair of the department of neuropsychiatry at Texas Tech University, says, “I’m convinced that emotional states can affect the body’s immune system.”

The psychological effects Was Cousins’ recovery due to something physical, like the release of endorphins, or was it something psychological? No one knows, but both the skeptics and supporters of Berk’s and Miller’s studies agree that laughter and humor have positive benefits on psychological health.

“At the very least, laughter offsets mental stress,” says Philip Taylor, M.D., Erickson Health physician at Maris Grove, an Erickson community in Pennsylvania.

“When it comes to staying well, psychoanalysts have shown that humor and altruism (being selfless, helping others) are the two characteristics that put people in the highest functioning levels,” Schiffer says.

You may not live longer, but you will live better, they both say. “If you can laugh at yourself, it is easier to bear the physical burdens that so often come to us as we age,” Schiffer says.

You can’t do it alone While watching funny movies may keep your spirits up to some degree, Schiffer discourages staying locked indoors alone to do so. “I don’t believe it is possible to be humorous alone,” he says.

“The isolation that comes with so many older people being alone puts a block on humor—and altruism too. That is why it is important for older people to find connections,” Schiffer says. (To see an article about social isolation, click here.) That connection might occur at a religious group, club, or other social gathering.

Ultimately, remember that while Marx brothers movies might have helped Cousins, no one—not even laughter therapy’s most ardent supporters—suggests laughter as a substitute for standard therapies.

“I recommend at least one hearty laugh a day to people, but I don’t suggest it as a substitute for exercise or to whatever medicine they are already taking,” Miller says.

To discuss this article, click here!

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Erickson Tribune - Not feeling well? Start laughing!

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