Benefits of Laughter

-"Even the gods love jokes" - Plato

What Plato said is very true because laughter has a lot of benefits on our mind and even on our body. Even if it is a reaction which is regulated by the brain, our body needs laughter as much as our mind does!

Everybody observed the good mood that laughter generates but nobody thought to apply laughter therapy in medicine, until 1979 when Norman Cousins published a book about laughter and it's benefits. In this book he described how he was diagnosed in 1964 with spondylitis, an illness that affected his spine and other parts of his body. He observed that negative thoughts were increasing the pain so he decided to think positively. In two days he left the hospital and took a room in a hotel were he took severe doses of vitamin C and watched a lot of comedy movies. The result? Almost two and a half hours of pain-free sleep!

William Fry, M.D., professor of psychiatry at Stanford University Medical School and expert on health and laughter says that if we want to fly like the angels and feel like a child does, every day we should laugh at least 80 times a day. He observed that a child laughs almost 300 times a day, while an adult laughs only 17 times. Why? Are we so stressed? Do we think that problems will be solved if we forget to laugh?

Louis Kronenberg says that humor is our sixth sense and should be the way we view the world. He thinks that if we want to live in a better life we should learn how to laugh of our problems and our pain - we shouldn't take life so seriously, because laughter wounds and heals, diminishes and enlarges.

The American humorist, James Tharbor said that the wellspring of laughter is pain, stress and suffering, because without suffering and pain there would be nothing to laugh at!

So, we should start laughing much more because laughter reduces pain by releasing some hormones that are responsible with happiness; dissolves stress, anxiety, irritation and depression - and with these effects our problems will be fewer; it boosts the immune system; laughter is even equivalent to a small exercise because our muscles are moving, and when we are laughing out loud our brain sends signals to our body so that we'll move our hands and legs!

Besides those above, there are some medical benefits that are used nowadays in hospitals in special rooms where people are watching or listening to funny things - so that they will forget for a short period of time about the pain! The most important branch of medicine where laughter is practiced is oncology, where patients are treated with laughter.

So, laughter makes our life easier and can keep us fit and it helps us to forget about the pain. But not only that it makes us see things differently but it adds spice to life; it is to life what salt is to a hard-boiled egg!

By Petre An