Traveling the Road to Wellness

The Healing Power of Laughter

July 2009

Victor Borge once said, "laughter is the shortest distance between two people." Milton Berle called laugher "an instant vacation." And one of this country’s greatest leaders, Abraham Lincoln, held laughter in even higher esteem saying, "with the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die." Those are pretty powerful words from a powerful man about an often trivialized activity, laughter.

Laughter is the best medicine. Laughter is good for the soul. We’ve all heard these lines a hundred times over about the healing power of laughter. As it turns out, they may be more truth than cliché.

The science community has taken a closer look at what power laughter, and humor in general, may actually have in regards to overall health and well-being. What they’re finding will give you yet another reason to let loose with a good belly laugh as often as possible.

In 2005, researchers from the University of Maryland School of Medicine held a study that ended up showing how laughter can help blood vessels function better. Here’s an excerpt from that study:

Using laughter-provoking movies to gauge the effect of emotions on cardiovascular health, researchers… have shown for the first time that laughter is linked to healthy function of blood vessels. Laughter appears to cause the tissue that forms the inner lining of blood vessels, the endothelium, to dilate or expand in order to increase blood flow. When the same group of study volunteers was shown a movie that produced mental stress, their blood vessel lining developed a potentially unhealthy response called vasoconstriction, reducing blood flow. That finding confirms previous studies, which suggested there was a link between mental stress and the narrowing of blood vessels.

The study included a group of 20 non-smoking, healthy volunteers, equally divided between men and women, whose average age was 33. The participants had normal blood pressure, cholesterol and blood glucose levels.

Source: [http://www.dearshrink.com/laughter_univofMaryland030905.pdf]

What is the medical profession saying about laughter? Well, some hospitals around the country have gone so far as starting up laugher clubs and daily laugh circles as a way of promoting positive healing. Here’s what they’re saying about the healing power of laughter:

  • Laughter helps open your blood vessels and enhance your immune system
  • Laughter can help regulate stress
  • Laughter can discourage pain by shifting the energy one uses to focus on the pain to a different, more positive focus
  • Laughing is a good way to achieve relaxation
  • A good belly laugh can increase your body’s ability to fight infections
  • Obviously, laughter improves the quality of life – it helps people deal with negative and emotionally-taxing situations, helps people move on and helps them take better care of themselves

What all these studies and reports do is give you free license to laugh it up. Find the humor in everyday life, and see what power laughter may have in your own life. Tell a joke, watch a comedy or check out a good book from the humor section at your local library. Who knows, maybe you even have a laughter club in your area? You can search for one here: www.worldlaughtertour.com.

Source: http://www.seattlepi.com/health/262840_laughter14.html
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