User:Kathryn.wilson

Is Laughter the Best Medicine?
"The human race has only one effective weapon and that is laughter." - Mark Twain

Born in 1835, Mark Twain, in addition to becoming one of America's most famous authors, seemed to know a little something about the basic human need for laughter. Fast-forward to the 1950's when people laughed an average of 18 minutes a day. Now, in the early 21st century, research has shown that we modern Americans laugh an average of 4 to 6 minutes a day. If our only effective weapon is laughter, have we run out of ammo? Surely not with Hollywood producing at least one new comedy every month.

Is laughter the "best medicine"? Researchers have shown that laughter does have several positive health benefits. It increases the level of health-enhancing hormones in the body such as endorphins and neurotransmitters. Laughing also increases your blood pressure and oxygen intake which may even lead to having a better night's sleep.

As a person laughs in a vigorous fashion (one of those tear-drawing, foot-stomping sorts of laughs) their body goes through a process similar to hyperventilating. This causes them to use their abdominal muscles as well as their diaphragm.

Researchers at Vanderbilt University showed that laughing for 10-15 minutes burned 50 calories. Some doctors say that a good, long laugh can be the equivalent to spending 10 minutes on a rowing machine! Don't turn in your gym membership yet. Although laughing does have a positive effect on your body you'd have to laugh for about 12 hours just to burn one pound.

What Came First: the Laughter or the Happy Life?
So which comes first? Does laughing give you a happier life or are you laughing more because your life is happier? Doctors have been looking into the research for laughter therapy and have found it a little less than satisfactory. Most of the research that has been conducted on laughter therapy has been small and has not been done in a very broad context. The researchers obviously go into the experiment wanting it to succeed and laughing is such an individualized, subjective thing to be studying that it is difficult to come up with any measurable data.

Don't discredit the research and the argument yet. There are several personal testimonies and stories based on the theory of laughter therapy written by individuals who claim to have reaped the benefits of laughter therapy.

One such testimony was written by Norman Cousins(1915-1990), author of of an Illness'' and Adjunct Professor of Medical Humanities for the School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angelas. Cousins researched the biochemistry of human emotions. When he was diagnosed with heart disease, Cousins believed that taking large amounts of vitamin C and laughing several times a day would improve his condition. Cousins would laugh heartily and would then enjoy one to two hours of pain free sleep as a result. He actually lived much longer than the doctors ever expected him to live, and Cousins accredited this to the pain-killing effects of laughter. In 1990, Cousins was awarded the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism for his work in physical and emotional healing.

You Decide
Although there isn't much solid research on laughter as medicine to convince most doctors, one must at least give consideration to Norman Cousins' research and personal testimony on the topic as well as the testimonies of many others. Perhaps it would be most beneficial to personally put the theory to test. Perhaps there is something to the old adage, "Laughter is the best medicine."

"The most wasted of all days is one without laughter." E.E. Cummings

"A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor's book." - Irish Proverbs