WELL - Summer 2000 - L Is For Laughter

Summer 2000

Volume II, Issue II

L Is For Laughter

by Martin Collis, PhD

At Speakwell we have a fondness for acronyms, which you will have noticed if you have read previous issues of WELL. M.E.L.L.O.W. is a formula for high level wellness and lifestyle artistry that stands for: Magic of the Mind, Exercise, Laughter, Love, Optimal Nutrition and Wonder. In the past two issues, we have focused on the Magic of the Mind and Exercise, so this time it's Laughter.

"A merry heart maketh like good medicine"

Proverbs

Laughter is a reflex, and reflexes evolved in our species because they have survival value. We are hard wired to laugh. Little babies that are deaf and blind laugh spontaneously.

The benefits of laughter are many; laughter is one of the keys to unlocking a free pharmacy that has no negative side effects. Here's just a few of the benefits of laughter, and the positive attitude that accompanies it:

Laughter is healthy. It strengthens cellular immunity with increased numbers of natural killer cells and activated T cells. It enhances humoral immunity (it puts the humor in humoral immunity), which can be measured by increased levels of IgA and IgG. In simple terms it helps the immune system function.
It's a good way to handle stress; problems or people that can be laughed at can't overwhelm you. At a biochemical level, a measurable reduction in the hormones associated with stress accompanies laughter.
Laughter helps block pain.
Laughter helps communication—I often speak of the 3 L's. Laughter Leads to Learning. Laughter keeps an audience or class alive and the adrenaline that accompanies laughter seems to help fix information in those little protein stacks of memory.
Laughter is the shortest distance between people. The right sort of laughter dissolves the barriers of awkwardness and embarrassment that sometimes block communication.
The tougher the job, the blacker the humor. Doctors, nurses, paramedics, military personnel and police often use black (or gallows) humor to lighten the impact of the horrors with which they are confronted.
Bullies, from the school playground to the international arena, are disempowered by humor. Remember the Ayatollah's reaction to the satire in Salmon Rushdie's "Satanic Verses"?
The body/mind is a single entity and the physical act of laughing informs the mind that all is well.
The Latin for laughter is ridiculum, and an ability to see the ridiculous in others and ourselves is a wonderful survival tool.

How many more reasons do I need to validate the importance, power and delight of laughter? Positive laughter enhances the workplace, the home, the classroom, the meeting room and the conference hall. It's not by chance that the most requested attribute in the personal advertisements on the net and in the newspapers is a sense of humor.

As a schoolboy in England, I attended a "public" school, which was in fact an elite private institution that specialized in the ritual beating of students. I hated that school and was "asked" to leave at the age of 16. It seemed like a disaster at the time, but was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. The three things I can remember my school principal saying were, "Grow-up, get serious, and wipe that stupid smile off your face." I ignored those 3 injunctions and now take pleasure from the fact that I get paid for some of the things for which I used to get hit.

One cannot write about the power of laughter without acknowledging the work of Norman Cousins. Mr. Cousins was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, a usually terminal condition in which the connective tissue in the spine disintegrates. His chances of survival according to a specialist were "one in 500." Mr. Cousins chose to accept the diagnosis and defy the prognosis. In co–operation with his doctor he used some holistic therapies including high levels of vitamin C. However, the key to his recovery was laughter. He writes:

"How scientific was it to believe that laughter—as well as positive emotions in general—was affecting my body chemistry for the better? If laughter did in fact have a salutary effect on the body's chemistry, it seemed at least theoretically possible it would enhance the immune system's ability to fight the inflammation. So we took sedimentation rate readings just before, as well as several hours after, the laughter episodes. Each time, there was a drop of at least 5 points. The drop by itself was not substantial, but it held and was cumulative. I was greatly elated by the discovery that there is a physiological basis for the ancient theory that laughter is good medicine."

Mr. Cousins summarized his findings in the December 1976, New England Journal of Medicine, in what became one of their most widely reprinted and translated articles ever. I highly recommend his original book "Anatomy of an Illness" which is an expanded version of the Journal article.

Norman had a real impact on hospitals, many of which now feature laughter carts, visiting clowns (e.g. Patch Adams), funny videos and a lighter touch in dealing with disease. Among my favorite signs in hospitals are, "Laughter can be dangerous to your disease" and "There's not much laughter in medicine, but there's lots of medicine in laughter."

What would an article on laughter be without a few things to laugh at? Herewith a couple of the jokes heard around Speakwell recently.

In the Acronyms section of this issue we included C.R.A.F.T. for Can't Remember A Friggin' Thing, which I've always liked. Here's a joke about someone with a CRAFT problem:

1^st guy:	"I keep forgetting things so I'm attending a memory clinic."
2^nd guy:	"Oh, what's its name?"
1^st guy:	"Shoot, I can't remember—what's the name of that lovely English flower with a nice scent and thorny stem?"
2^nd guy:	"A rose?"
1^st guy:	"Yes. (he calls his wife) Rose, what's the name of that memory clinic?"

Street person:	"I haven't eaten in 4 days!"
Well–upholstered woman:	"I wish I had your will power!"

Man:	"I'm a golfer"
Woman:	"I'm a hooker"
Man:	"That's easy to correct."

A robin after feasting on some worms was too stuffed
to fly, so he lay down to bask in the sunshine.

He's eaten by a cat who thinks, "I love baskin' robins"

What do get when you play country music backwards?
You get your girlfriend back, your dog back and your truck starts.

What do you get when you play heavy metal backwards?
You hear satanic messages.

What do you get when you get play New Age music backwards?
You get new age music.

To me laughter is a metaphor for a positive, optimistic approach to life. Laughter is not so much a goal, as a methodology.

As Don Ardell frequently reminds us, "wellness is much too important to be taken seriously." Never forget the words of the poet Marianne Moore, "To miss the joy, is to miss it all."

One of the pleasures of email is that, almost daily, there's something to laugh about in the lists and the jokes that come from our colleagues around North America. Thanks are due especially to Bill Dickerson at UC Fullerton, for his regular and irreverent "Monotony Breakers", and Charles Sterling who is able to mine some rich seams of Texan humor unavailable to us in Canada.

Contact Information

Phone: (250) 721-6997
Fax: (250) 721-6929
Email: mcollis@speakwell.com

newsletter for wellness