Using Laughter as Medicine

1-Aside from improving our moods, laughter can reduce stress, help fight infection, and reduce pain.

Norman Cousins said, “Laughter is a powerful way to tap positive emotions" (Moss 1). Humor is studied by many researchers in sociology, psychology, art, literature, and medicine. When people wonder whether humor aids in areas other than health, a treasure trove of possible benefits to the learning or educational community is opened up. Humor can be used as a tool to promote learning.Research speaks to the many benefits of humor in healing, to its benefits in the classroom or boardroom, from reducing stress of students or employees, to boosting self-esteem and feelings of camaraderie. Additionally, studies show that those who use humor to convey a message are often more favorably perceived. Humor helps deliver the presenter's message to

The book, Anatomy of an Illness, by Norman Cousins is a story of his self-prescribed treatment to his collagen illness; ankylosing spondylitis which causes the breakdown of the connective tissue in the spine. Norman was a member of the New York Evening Post, Current History, and a staff member of the Saturday Review of Literature. After suffering horrible reactions to the drugs he was given, Norman was determined to find an alternative to heal his body and took matters in his own hands upon approval from his physician. He did his research and found that when you have negative emotions in the body it produces negative chemical changes in the body. This lead Cousins to believe that positive emotions in the bodies would produce positive chemical changes in the body. After Cousins was told that he had little chance of surviving, he worked hard to develop a recovery program that incorporated mega doses of Vitamin C. Other than hope, love, and faith, he concluded that there should be laughter in his positive emotional therapy. He reported that ten minutes of genuine belly laughter has an anesthetic effect and would give him at least two hours of pain-free sleep. Watching the television show “Candid Camera,” viewing movies, and listening to books being read to him, would all lead to another pain-free interval by stimulating his laughter. With time, Norman experienced gradual improvements and the loss of some symptoms. He even began to regain most of his lost movement in his

Laughter relates to positive thinking. The positive thinking helps us to improve our immune system and become healthier. It helps in removing the negative thoughts from our mind and not letting our immune system become worse further.

Laughter also proves a vital role in helping the patients deal with their problems. Not only does it help them deal with problems but it also gave them the push toward progress on getting out of the institution.

Patch may have been on to something since science itself claims laughter is good for the human body. For one, decreasing the pain you feel and helping your blood vessels to function better; allowing them to expand which increases blood flow. All of which is good for the heart and brain. (Hara Estroff Marano,

Laughter is contagious; much more infectious than any sneeze, sniffle, or yawn out there. When laughter is shared amongst a group, it forms a bond and spreads happiness throughout. Laughter is also known to increase confidence, even on the worst of days. In Ken Kesey's novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the patients, day by day, do not live their own lives, but instead, one that is under the control of Nurse Ratched. The patients have been in a mental institution for so long, they are surrounded by a depressing and bland world, so much so, that now they are relatively lifeless. In this novel, laughter is indeed the best medicine and frees one from control and oppression and gives the patient's confidence to have their own voice.

I use laughter as a weapon of defense. For example, a few months ago I fell down the stairs hurt my ankle and bruised my arm. There was nothing on the stairs that I tripped over I am just a clumsy person. Immediately afterwards I laughed so hard that I could not breathe. Family members rushed over to help me get up and clean the blood off my arm. I sat there making jokes about always falling to eliminate suffering from embarrassment. I prefer people to laugh with me instead of at me.

Laughter tends to spread effortlessly among people and chimps when we see it happening around us. So why do the people around us affect our behavior? When someone laughs it's almost impossible not to join in. There are laughing therapies that people attend because humans love to laugh. De Waals chimps laugh during games and he can’t help but expresses a laugh of his own. Chimps join each other into the same behavior as easily as humans do. Shared laughter is one example of primate sensitivity. The same thing happens when a person yawns, it's contagious. This is because our bodies can't resist the urge to yawn. It’s easy to catch on to someone else's behavior such as, synchronization: running when others run, crying when others cry or yawning

Information (sub-point): While watching The Office, you’re bound to laugh at some point during the show whether it is one of Jim’s pranks on Dwight, or one of Stanley’s sassy comments, or from one of the many times Michael says “That’s what she said”. But what you may not know is that by laughing you’re actually helping you’re immune system out. A two-month study done in Taiwan gathered sixty- seven seventh graders and split them up into two groups. (Chang, 2013). One group read and did homework during study hall while the other group did a forty-five minute intervention. In this intervention, the students were first relaxed by breathing exercises, and then they were, “asked to release bottled up emotions” like saying they were afraid or cold (Chang, 2013). After they expressed their emotions, they laughed for two to three minutes. It was seen that after this experiment, the experimental group had lowered their levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, while the control group’s cortisol levels had stayed the same. (Chang, 2013). This is wonderful because according to the Mayo Clinic Staff (2011), the overexposure to cortisol can lead to weight gain, digestive problems, heart disease, and sleep problems. So you see, just by laughing from The

Laughter is something that breaks tensions, forms bonds between its victims, and can cheer up your day. It has been scientifically proven that laughter sends rushes of dopamine (the brain’s happy “drug”) to the brain, in which results in you being in a better mood. Everyone is different; hence, everyone will find their own definition of what is funny. Though, there are usually socially acceptable things to laugh at and to not within a community. For example, in America, it is not socially acceptable to laugh if you find out someone has died, or if someone is severely injured. First instinct is to cry, consult the family, and have alone time. However, in Felicidade Eterna, their first instinct is to make it a positive situation and laugh it

Different situations require different reactions but sometimes the sad situations require the laughs and smiles because without them they will tear you down. When you encounter a life altering situation you must be able to talk about it and learn to laugh or the darkness will plague you.

Finally, older generations could benefit from laughing more often. According to the University of Virginia, the average adult laughs only about 15 times per day. In contrast, the average child laughs about 300 to 500 times per day. If older people laughed more, they would experience significant stress relief, improve their immune system, and their personal satisfaction would increase.

Many would argue that cancer is no laughing matter. However, some science experimentation suggests that humor may be medicinal. The purpose of this article is to explain how humor is thought to affect the immune system, analyze results of pertinent research and studies, and provide an opinion on whether humor has an impact on the immune system, either positive or negative.

In another random controlled trial Kim et al (2009) investigated the effects of therapeutic laughter on depression, anxiety, and stress among breast cancer patients. Participants consisted of 60 breast cancer outpatients who received radiotherapy. 31 of the patients were assigned to the experimental group whilst the other 29 patients made up the programme control group. Laughter therapy consisted of the delivery of information and active motion resulting in laughter. It was provided four times for 14 days, with each session lasting for about an hour. To evaluate the effects of laughter therapy, depression and anxiety severity were measured using Hospital