If you are anything like me you love a good laugh. Trouble is when you’re dealing with pain on a daily basis it is often hard to find anything at all to laugh about which is a shame because according to many researchers having a good, hearty belly laugh every day can greatly improve how we feel. So why do we feel better after having a good laugh?
The value of laughter in helping to relieve pain began to attract significant attention in the 1980′s when Dr. Norman Cousins in his book ‘Anatomy Of An Illness’ described how watching Marx Brothers movies and reading humorous books and articles helped him recover from a life threatening tissue disease.
Dr. Cousins made a point to enjoy a hearty belly laugh several times a day and claimed that a few minutes of laughter
Gave him an hour or more of pain free sleep. As a result, many pain centers in the U.S. began to use humor therapy to reduce the level of pain medication needed by patients.
There was even a movie made about real life doctor Patch Adams, a physician who was totally committed to making his patients laugh as an essential part of his treatment.
There was even a movie made about real life doctor Patch Adams, a physician who was totally committed to making his patients laugh as an essential part of his treatment.
How Does Laughter Reduce Pain
Clinical staff consistently note that the primary benefit of humor therapy is that it serves as a diversionary tactic, that is, it takes the patient’s mind off the pain.
A study published in the Journal Of Holistic Nursing reported that patients who were told one-liners after surgery and before painful medication was administered perceived less pain when compared to patients who didn’t get a dose of humor as part of their therapy.
Another study, this one published in the journal of Applied Behavioral Analysis found that young girls with burns who were shown cartoons during very painful hydrotherapy said they felt less pain than similar patients who were not exposed to cartoons during the same procedure.
A second theory of how laughter helps relieve pain is that it triggers the release of endorphins, the chemicals in the brain that make us feel good.
A study published in the Journal Of Holistic Nursing reported that patients who were told one-liners after surgery and before painful medication was administered perceived less pain when compared to patients who didn’t get a dose of humor as part of their therapy.
Another study, this one published in the journal of Applied Behavioral Analysis found that young girls with burns who were shown cartoons during very painful hydrotherapy said they felt less pain than similar patients who were not exposed to cartoons during the same procedure.
A second theory of how laughter helps relieve pain is that it triggers the release of endorphins, the chemicals in the brain that make us feel good.
Natural Healing
Around the same time as Dr. Cousins book appeared, the departing editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Franz Ingelfinger, noted that 85 percent of all human illnesses are curable by the body’s own healing system. Building a positive focus in your life, which includes a regular dose of laughter, can play a key role in supporting the body’s ability to do just that.
Laughing, in fact, has been shown to increase the body’s natural killer cells and T-cells which are types of cells that attack foreign material in our bodies. Laughter also keeps away negative emotions such as anxiety and depression which tend to weaken immune systems.
Research on stress-related hormones and humor has shown that laughter reduces at least four of the hormones associated with the stress response, including epinephrine, cortisol, dopac and growth hormone.
Some studies have indicated that laughter improves lung capacity and with improved lung capacity come improved oxygen levels in the blood, thereby alleviating ischemic pain or pain due to lack of oxygen-rich blood.
Internal Jogging
According to Dr. William Fry from Stanford University, one minute of laughter is equal to 10 minutes on the rowing machine (which explains why laughter can be so tiring!!). Laughter is a kind of ‘internal jogging’ that exercises our heart and reduces blood pressure in the same way as does standard aerobic exercise. This kind of laughter exercise is well suited to sedentary people and those who are confined to a bed or wheelchair.
If you keep the ‘Huh Huh Huh’ going for long periods of time and increase the number of times you do it while at the same time shrugging your upper body you will keep the oxygen flowing to the cells that need it and you will be giving what your body needs to begin to reduce your pain and speed up the healing process.
And here’s a final fascinating fact – Researchers at St. Paul Ramsey Medical Centre in Minnesota say that tears of laughter remove toxic substances that normally build up during periods of emotional stress. So take the time to read all of those pesky emails that your friends and family send to you and if you are ever looking for a good joke there are plenty of sites on the internet that have good, and not so good, jokes to read.
Life will always be full of challenges but we should always be driven to seek those things that give us joy and peace, so if a joke can give you 30 seconds of joy, read it and keep smiling.
