A man rushed into a veterinarian's office carrying his limp, lifeless dog. The vet examined the
animal and told the man the dog was dead. The man asked if there was any way the doctor could
revive the dog. The doctor left the room and returned with a cat, who sniffed the dog from head to
tail then looked up at the vet and meowed.
"Sorry," said the doctor. "There's nothing I can do."
"Thanks for trying," said the man with a sigh. "How much do I owe you?"
"Three hundred and fifty dollars," replied the doctor.
"Three hundred and fifty dollars! Just to tell me my dog is dead?"
"Well," said the doctor, "it was $50 for the office visit. The other $300 is for the CAT scan."
Whether the above joke made you laugh or groan, it lightened your mood. And if you had been in
pain, many scientists agree, it would have eased the hurt—at least temporarily.
A fresh take on an old idea
The notion that laughter is good for the body has been around for thousands of years—certainly as
far back as the Old Testament. Proverbs 17:22 says, "A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a
crushed spirit dries up the bones."
Seventeenth century English physician Dr. Thomas Sydenham remarked, "The arrival of a good clown
exercises more beneficial influence upon the health of a town than of twenty asses laden with
drugs." Or as Groucho Marx put it, "A clown is like aspirin, only he works twice as fast."
How do you get a sweet 80-year-old lady to say the F word? Get another sweet little 80-year-old
lady to yell *BINGO*!
The value of laughter in helping to relieve pain began to attract significant attention in the
1980s when Dr. Norman Cousins in his book Anatomy of an Illness described how watching Marx
Brother movies and reading humorous books and articles helped him recover from a life-threatening
tissue disease.
Cousins made it a point to enjoy a hearty belly laugh several times a day. He claimed that a few
minutes of laughter gave him an hour or more of pain-free sleep. As a result, many pain centers
around the country began to use humor therapy to reduce the level of pain medication needed by
patients.
There was even a movie made about real-life doctor Patch Adams, a physician who was totally
committed to making his patients laugh as an essential part of his treatment.
How does laughter reduce pain?
Clinical staff consistently note that the primary benefit of humor therapy is that it serves as a
diversionary tactic—that is, it takes a patient's mind off the pain.
A study published in the Journal of Holistic Nursing reported that patients who were told one-
liners after surgery and before painful medication was administered perceived less pain when
compared to patients who didn't get a dose of humor as part of their therapy.
Why don't bunnies make noise when they have sex? Because they have cotton balls.
Another study, this one published in the Journal of Applied Behavioral Analysis, found that young
girls with burns who were shown cartoons during very painful hydrotherapy said they felt less pain
than similar patients who were not exposed to cartoons during the same procedure.
A second theory of how laughter helps relieve pain is that it triggers the release of endorphins,
the chemicals in the brain that can make us feel good.
Natural healing
Around the same time that the Cousins book appeared, the departing editor of the New England
Journal of Medicine, Dr. Franz Ingelfinger, noted that 85 percent of all human illnesses are
curable by the body's own healing system. Building a positive focus in your life—which includes a
regular dose of laughter—can play a key role in supporting the body's ability to do just that.
Laughing, in fact, has been shown to increase the body's natural killer cells and T-cells, which
are types of cells that attack foreign material in our bodies. Laughter also keeps away negative
emotions such as anxiety and depression, which tend to weaken the immune system.
Why are they called "hemorrhoids". They should be called "asteroids"?
Research on stress-related hormones and humor has shown that laughter reduces at least four of the
hormones associated with the stress response, including epinephrine, cortisol, dopac, and growth
hormone.
Some studies have indicated that laughter improves lung capacity and with improved lung capacity
come improved oxygen levels in the blood, thereby alleviating ischemic pain or pain do to lack of
oxygen-rich blood.
Internal jogging
According to Dr. William Fry from Stanford University, one minute of laughter is equal to 10
minutes on the rowing machine. Laughter is a kind of "internal jogging" that exercises our heart
and reduces blood pressure in the same way as does standard aerobic exercise. This kind of
laughter exercise is well suited to sedentary people and those who are confined to a bed or
wheelchair.
What did One saggy boob say to the other saggy boob? If we drop any lower people are gonna think
we are nuts!
If you keep the Huh Huh Huh - going for long periods of time and increase the number of times you
do it while at the same time shrugging your upper body you will keep the oxygen flowing to the
cells that need it and you will be giving what you body need to begin to reduce your pain and
speed healing.
And here's a final fascinating fact: Researchers at St. Paul Ramsey Medical Center in Minnesota
say that tears of laughter remove toxic substances that normally build up during periods of
emotional stress…So, whether you prefer Dirty jokes, Redneck jokes or Funny Photos the Internet
has provide us with an unlimited number of resources not to mention the ton of emails that you get
from your friends that they think are funny and they just have to send to you for some reason
thinking that you have the time to read it and that you have nothing else to do. Maybe just read
on a week and see how you feel.
If you do read a joke or see a funny photo and it does put a smile on your face learn to keep that
smile going longer and feel how good you feel when you keep your head up and a smile on your face.
Life will always be full of challenges but we should always be driven to seek those thing that
give us Joy and Piece, so if a joke can give you 30 seconds of joy, read a joke and keep smiling.
If you enjoyed this article, and would like more information in alternative back pain treatments
sign up for our Back Pain Advisory and you will join the nearly 1 million people that have
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Submitted by:
- Name: Steven Hefferon ; CMT, PTA, CPRS
- Date: 12/08/07 at 15:05
- Email: hefferonarticles@yahoo.com
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