Laughter

“Laughter is the best medicine.” That’s the saying, and I’ve learned not to underestimate it.

A recent study from Loma Linda University in California measured levels of cortisol, a “stress hormone,” and short-term memory before and after a “humor break,” using subjects in their sixties and seventies. The researchers concluded that just ten or fifteen minutes of laughter a day decreased stress, improved memory, and even burned calories.

Cancer Treatment Centers of America reports that “a growing body of research supports the theory that laughter may have therapeutic value.”

It certainly makes me feel better.

As I progress through treatment cycles, I have become intentional about taking opportunities to laugh. I have found that an hour or so enjoying the company of friends and laughing together is a better pain-reliever than ibuprofen.

Humor and consequently laughter takes me out of myself. For me, such experience verifies studies that have shown that episodes of laughter help reduce pain, decrease stress-related hormones, and boost the immune system.

Some years ago I read about Norman Cousins (1915 – 1990), a writer who also served as a professor of Medical Humanities in the UCLA School of Medicine. Cousins was diagnosed with heart disease and a form perhaps of reactive arthritis. Given little chance of surviving, he treated himself with massive doses of Vitamin C and laughter. According to Cousins, who documented his ailments in the book, Anatomy of an Illness, which was made into a television movie in 1994, “I made the joyous discovery that ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep.”

Cousins survived much longer than his doctors predicted: ten years after his first heart attack, twenty-six years after his collagen illness, and thirty-six years after his doctors first diagnosed his heart disease.

I take my cue from Cousins and others who have discovered the therapeutic value of laughter. Since I began treatment, I have ended most days with an hour or so of sitcoms, thanks to Netflix. But the best laughter still remains the laughter shared with friends.