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The Healing Power of Humor

Humor has powerful healing effects both mentally and physically. It allows us to gain perspective during difficult times and reduces feelings of pain or sorrow. Laughter triggers the release of endorphins which can help one see situations more clearly and positively. Physiologically, laughter stimulates the cardiovascular system and increases immune cells, acting as an antidote to stress and potentially helping the body fight diseases. Recent studies show that even anticipating humor can help reduce stress hormones in the body. While still being studied, humor clearly heals the spirit and helps people free themselves from painful emotions by finding humor even during difficult life situations.

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75 views2 pages

The Healing Power of Humor

Humor has powerful healing effects both mentally and physically. It allows us to gain perspective during difficult times and reduces feelings of pain or sorrow. Laughter triggers the release of endorphins which can help one see situations more clearly and positively. Physiologically, laughter stimulates the cardiovascular system and increases immune cells, acting as an antidote to stress and potentially helping the body fight diseases. Recent studies show that even anticipating humor can help reduce stress hormones in the body. While still being studied, humor clearly heals the spirit and helps people free themselves from painful emotions by finding humor even during difficult life situations.

Uploaded by

jebrock25
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© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Ex no: 4 Speech

24.02.2011

How Humour heals?

One way that humour can help to heal is that it literally changes our outlook on life. As we laugh,
we have trouble seeing life's difficulties the same way. Suddenly, our problems don't seem quite
as bad. Humour allows one to distance him/herself from a painful physical or medical situation
while also acknowledging that he or she is in such a situation.

This change in perspective is a powerful healing force. Distancing yourself from a distressing
situation allows you to view certain circumstances from a more objective perspective, and this can
help you extract powerful emotions that focus on your pain or sorrow. In doing this, you do not
reject the painful circumstances surrounding you, but acknowledge the reality of your situation -
the good with the bad.

Recent mental health studies have shown that laughter can stimulate areas of the brain that
release endorphins, helping us to see our situation more clearly.

The benefits of humour, though, aren't all mental. Humour triggers laughter. According to
physiological studies, the laughter, in turn, stimulates our cardiovascular systems by increasing
the rate at which the heart beats and contracting the muscles. In fact, one study suggested that
laughing one hundred times per day is the equivalent of spending ten minutes on a rowing
machine.

Humor is like gratitude in that it nurtures optimism, and Dan Baker writes this in “What Happy
People Know”:

[Appreciation] is the first and most fundamental happiness tool. … Research now shows it is
physiologically impossible to be in a state of appreciation and a state of fear at the same time.
Thus, appreciation is the antidote to fear.

So if humour can change a perspective on a painful memory of the past or a gnawing issue of the
present into opportunities to laugh at the inherent craziness of life at times, then a person can
better facilitate his own healing.
One study went so far as to suggest that the benefits of laughter reach far beyond our body
system. "Laughter reduces levels of certain stress hormones which suppress the immune system,
increase the number of blood platelets - which can cause obstructions in arteries, and raise blood
pressure," said one researcher. "When we're laughing, natural killer cells that destroy cancer cells
increase, as does the level of Gamma-interferon - a disease-fighting protein, T-cells - a major part
of the immune system, and B-cells - which make disease-destroying antibodies. Laughter may
also increase the concentration of salivary immunoglobulin A, which defends against infectious
organisms entering through the respiratory tract so it helps us to resist colds and viruses." That
makes quite a case of the adage "A barrel of laughs a day keeps the doctor away."

The research team at Loma Linda, California, conducted a similar study recently to see if the
anticipation of laughter that was shown to boost immune systems could also reduce the levels of
three stress hormones: cortisol (“the stress hormone”), epinephrine (adrenaline), and dopac, a
dopamine catabolite (brain chemical which helps produce epinephrine).

They studied 16 fasting males, who were assigned to either the control group or the experiment
group (those anticipating a humorous event). Blood levels showed that the stress hormones were
reduced 39, 70, and 38 percent respectively. Therefore, researchers suggest that anticipating a
positive event can reduce detrimental stress hormones.

The healing power of humour is wide-ranging in scope and situation. Though medically, the
interesting healing powers of humour are still being studied by many scientists , humour clearly
heals the spirit - a part of every one of us which is often neglected by medicine and science.

Seeing the humour in our painful or emotional situations can free us from the chains we have built
around ourselves, helping us to recognize that life is more than anger or pain or sorrow, but that it
is full of humour and the contagious sound of laughter.

So, in the words of the great Han Solo, "Laugh it up, fuzzball."

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