Wellness Articles

Laugh, It's Good For You

Wellness Index

Just as depression has been shown to weaken the immune system, there's a growing body of evidence that humor can strengthen it. One thing's for sure: stress is a known danger to your health, but a good laugh can chase stress away in a jiffy. Even a smile can counteract the negative energy of gloomy thoughts.

The Stress Connection

Laughter increases relaxation, one of the major antidotes to stress. As laughter subsides, so does tension. This decrease may last as long as 45 minutes. The greater the intensity of the laughter, the larger the decrease in tension and the longer the effect lasts.

A good belly laugh can also improve breathing and help digestion. It increases oxygen in the blood, benefiting your entire body. In fact, some hospitals are so convinced of the benefits of laughter, stress-busting and otherwise, that they have started "humor programs," including a "Laughmobile" full of funny audio tapes, books, and toys, and laughter workshops that encourage staff to add a more humorous attitude to their work and lives. Researchers believe that humor may cause chemical changes in the brain that boost the body's resistance to illness.

Making Laughter Work for You

You can approach life's trials and tribulations with either anger and hostility or with humor. Humor involves the ability to look at yourself with some emotional distance so that you don't dwell upon or give undo importance to any perceived "faults." Here are some tips to help you heighten your sense of humor and share it with others:

• Find things that make you laugh and do them. See a funny movie or TV show, read a funny book, look up your favorite cartoon in the newspaper, remember a joke to repeat to others, go to a comedy club, think back on a humorous situation in your past or in the past of someone you know.

• Use gentle humor to defuse potentially tense situations. But be careful not to make fun of others. Joking about someone else's failings is not really funny.

• Invite humor from others and share your laughter with others, especially someone who's feeling blue. Give a cartoon book to a friend who is ill or donate such books to a hospital.

• Send a silly telegram or a bouquet of balloons to someone you know well who could use a "pick-me-up".

• Play with a pet, even a friend's if you don't have one of your own.

• Talk to someone who always makes you laugh.

• Adopt an attitude of playfulness. You don't have to be outrageous or become a stand-up comic; but make it clear to others that you're a person who knows how to laugh.

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