“A day without laughter is a day wasted.”  Charlie Chaplin.

In last week’s blog, I talked about Stress Awareness Month. A good antidote to stress is regular laughter. So, this week, I thought I would share an interesting story about the value of laughing regularly.

One of my favourite sayings that I remember from my childhood is “Laughter is the best medicine.” I was therefore interested to read a story about its origins. I’d assumed that it was a biblical quote but apparently it doesn’t appear in the bible. However, it probably does originate from a quote in Proverbs: “A joyful heart is good medicine but a broken spirit dries up the bones.”

Whilst I was researching the benefits of laughter, I came across an interesting story about Norman Cousins who was an American political journalist, author, professor and world peace advocate who died in 1990 aged 75. Remarkably, Cousins was diagnosed in 1964 as having a serious disease and was told that his chances for survival were one in five hundred and that he had just months to live.

Norman Cousins had a strong will to live, so he decided to assume most of the responsibility for his own healing. Having been told that he had little chance of surviving, he developed a recovery programme.  It included big doses of Vitamin C, along with a positive attitude and laughter induced by Marx Brothers films and anything else that he could get his hands on to make him laugh. Cousins developed a systematic programme for getting daily doses of hearty laughter.

He said “I made the joyous discovery that ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anaesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep.”

It’s remarkable that he was able to laugh having been told he had an irreversible disease and didn’t have long to live.

He wrote of his healing experiences in “Anatomy of an Illness.” Medical tests done since then have established that there is a physiological basis for the theory that laughter is good medicine.

After his remarkable recovery, Cousins continued to study the effects of positive emotions on the human system. Eventually, he joined the medical faculty at the UCLA Medical School, a rare appointment for a person without a medical degree.

Cousins was one of the pioneers in linking laughter to healing. Since his initial explorations, his research has been duplicated by many both in and out of the medical profession. These include Dr Bernie Siegel and Dr Patch Adams. Both have written extensively about the power of humour and hope in the healing process.

My research also revealed some information from the Mayo Clinic about the short term and long benefits of laughter: –

Short-term benefits – laughter can: –

  • Stimulate many organs as it enhances your intake of oxygen-rich air, stimulates your heart, lungs and muscles and increases the endorphins that are released by your brain.
  • Activate and relieve your stress response and lead to a good relaxed feeling.
  • Soothe tension, stimulate circulation and aid muscle relaxation, which help reduce some of the physical symptoms of stress.

Long-term benefits – laughter may: –

  • Relieve pain by causing the body to produce its own natural painkillers. Laughter may also break the pain-spasm cycle common to some muscle disorders. It can also improve your immune system as positive thoughts release neuropeptides which help fight stress and illness.
  • Increase personal satisfaction. It can also make it easier to cope with difficult situations and help you connect with other people.
  • Improve your mood. It can reduce depression and anxiety and increase happiness.

Researchers at California’s Loma Linda University did a study with people in their 60s and 70s on the effects of humour on stress levels and short-term memory. Participants who viewed the funny videos had much higher improvement in recall abilities, 43.6 percent, compared with 20.3 percent in the non-humour group. The humour group showed considerably lower levels of cortisol, the “stress hormone” after watching the videos.

This week, why not pause for a few moments to reflect and consider what you need to do to introduce a little more laughter into your life.

To arrange a free no obligation consultation, please contact Stephen Pauley via the contact form or by e mail: Stephen@befirstclass.co.uk