What's the Best Medicine? Laughter!!!

Released: Monday, December 13, 2010

Laughter is the Best Medicine

By Jennifer Spina

Every day I speak with clients who have been diagnosed with breast cancer.  As we all know this can be devastating news for the breast cancer patient and for their family too.   As I speak to these women, I realized they all have grieved at one point about being affected by breast cancer, but all have one thing in common, a Sense of Humor.  A Sense of Humor allows these special women to heal.  The old adage says “Laughter is the Beast Medicine”.   

“Laughter is a powerful antidote to stress, pain, and conflict. Nothing works faster or more dependably to bring your mind and body back into balance than a good laugh. Humor lightens your burdens, inspires hopes, connects you to others, and keeps you grounded, focused, and alert.”  (Melinda Smith, M.A., Gina Kemp, M.A., and Jeanne Segal, Ph.D. contributed to this article.)   “With so much power to heal and renew, the ability to laugh easily and frequently is a tremendous resource for surmounting problems, enhancing your relationships, and supporting both physical and emotional health.”

Points on how Laughter is good for you:

• Laughter relaxes the whole body. A good, hearty laugh relieves physical tension and stress, leaving your muscles relaxed for up to 45 minutes after.
• Laughter boosts the immune system. Laughter decreases stress hormones and increases immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies, thus improving your resistance to disease.
• Laughter triggers the release of endorphins, the body’s natural feel-good chemicals. Endorphins promote an overall sense of well-being and can even temporarily relieve pain.
• Laughter protects the heart. Laughter improves the function of blood vessels and increases blood flow, which can help protect you against a heart attack and other cardiovascular problems.

Benefits of Laughter:

Laughter is a part of our everyday life and we need to all take part in this glorious ability!  Laughter makes you feel good. And the good feeling that you get when you laugh stays with you even after the laughter is gone. Humor helps you keep a positive, optimistic outlook through difficult situations, disappointments, and loss.

More than just a respite from sadness and pain, laughter gives you the courage and strength to find new sources of meaning and hope. Even in the most difficult of times, a laugh–or even simply a smile–can go a long way toward making you feel better. And laughter really is contagious—just hearing laughter makes you want to smile and join in on the fun.

Here are some ways to Start Laughing and Start Healing:

• Smile. Smiling is the beginning of laughter. Like laughter, it’s contagious. Pioneers in “laugh therapy,” find it’s possible to laugh without even experiencing a funny event. The same holds for smiling. When you look at someone or see something even mildly pleasing, practice smiling.
• Count your blessings. Literally make a list. The simple act of considering the good things in your life will distance you from negative thoughts that are a barrier to humor and laughter. When in a state of sadness, we have further to travel to get to humor and laughter.
• When you hear laughter, move toward it. Sometimes humor and laughter are private, a shared joke among a small group, but usually not. More often, people are very happy to share something funny because it gives them an opportunity to laugh again and feed off the humor you find in it. When you hear laughter, seek it out and ask, “What’s funny?”
• Spend time with fun, playful people. These are people who laugh easily–both at themselves and at life’s absurdities–and who routinely find the humor in everyday events. Their playful point of view and laughter are contagious.
• Bring humor into conversations. Ask people, “What’s the funniest thing that happened to you today? This week? In your life?”

Excerpts from article “Laughter is the Best Medicine-The Health Benefits of Humor and Laughter”