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In frenetic season, a good laugh is a great balm

When stressed or sick, a good laugh might be the best fix.

Date published: 12/23/2007

EACH DECEMBER, the flagship of medicine in the U.K., the British Medical Journal, breaks from its usual rather somber stuff and entertains its readers with reports on such cutting-edge research as "Is a martini shaken not stirred really any different?"

Somewhat in the same vein, rather than being the belligerent bore assailing you with the health hazards of gluttony and the season, I will attempt to bring you a tinkling, lighthearted meditation on the health benefits of humor.

Humor and a good laugh are good for you, or that's the premise. And though you might be skeptical of the Bible as a health resource, the writers of Proverbs (17:22) seemed to have it right with their claim that "a merry heart doeth good like a medicine."

Essayist Norman Cousins claims to have laughed his way to recovery from a heart attack. Patch Adams is, of course, the best known proponent of laughter and clowning as a therapeutic modality.

Closer to home, the Luv 'N Laffs clown troupe is still seen in oversize shoes and silly noses at Mary Washington Hospital every other Saturday morning, boosting the immunity of patients and staff alike.

For boosting the immunity is what humor/laughing seems to do, among other things.

Research has shown it leads to an increase in the number of killer cells (protective immune cells) in the blood, and also leads to reduced inflammation (manifest as a drop in sedimentation rate), improved oxygenation of the blood, and increased respiration and cardiac output.

Dr. Michael Miller, director of the Center for Protective Cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center, postulates that laughter does something beneficial to the endothelial lining of your blood vessels. He says this as an explanation for the results of a study he did that showed people who are less prone to laugh are more likely to have heart disease. (He found people who have heart disease are more somber than the rest of us, and are 40 percent less likely to laugh).

lightening conflict

Freud claimed humor is a way of dealing with unpleasant or conflictual situations. Darwin claimed laughter in children is an evolutionary development that makes them more lovable (in counterpoint to crying, which makes them hateful, of course). So, laughter allows us tolerate the prolonged infancy children need--without strangling the little dears.

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Date published: 12/23/2007