Laugh it up – release your endorphins
Do you have T.S. … terminal seriousness, that is?
Well, it definitely is time to lighten up, even get the giggles. He who laughs, lasts.
It feels so good when we suddenly are overcome with irrepressible giggles. But doesn’t it always seem to happen in situations where giggling is totally inappropriate, such as when you and a friend are at a lecture and you notice the speaker’s fly is open or that she has toilet paper stuck to her shoe?
These giggle attacks can be good and bad because the more desperate we become to stifle the giggles, the less successful we are.
Think about it. Isn’t it usually at the expense of someone else that we find something to laugh at? Our human weaknesses are very funny when they happen to someone else.
Bloopers on radio and television crack us up – they’re a perfect example of the kinds of things that can give us the irrepressible giggles. We think they’re funny, but the announcers really sweat blood trying to regain their composure – and that is the part that makes it all so funny. Oh, dear, we’re a sadistic lot.
When we hear the familiar words, “Laughter is the best medicine,” we may think of the joke section in Reader’s Digest. But many of us think of Norman Cousins, the doctor who became cancer-free, back in the ‘70s, by an overdose of daily laughter.
As Cousins lay in his hospital bed, having just received the grim diagnosis of leukemia, he asked to have tapes of famous comedians and humorous TV shows brought to his hospital room. All day, every day, he watched famous comedians such as the Three Stooges and Charlie Chaplin as well as TV shows such as “I Love Lucy” and “Candid Camera.”
The loud and raucous peels of laughter coming from Cousins’ room could be heard up and down the “terminally serious” corridors of the hospital floor. Hospital officials objected, saying Cousins’ laughter was upsetting other patients.
So Cousins moved himself and his tapes to a room in a hotel across the street from the hospital and continued his “laughter therapy.”
Cousins’ cancer went into remission, and he lived another 25 years.
The idea that the mind could play a part in healing the body was in the vanguard of the medical fringe’s thinking back in the 1970s. Although the jury may still be out on whether laughter cures illness, we do know that laughter feels good and it puts us in a happy state of mind.
It is known that laughing releases vital and healthful brain chemicals called endorphins. Endorphins are the body’s natural opiates – natural anti-depressants, painkillers and tranquilizers. Drug companies attempt to mimic these effects with their morphine or codeine, which can have dangerous side effects.
Laughter helps relieve stress.
Our stressful lives can trigger a chronic overproduction of cortisol, one of our body’s major hormones. When we have sustained high levels of cortisol flowing through our veins, it can lead to the development of health problems such as type II diabetes, severe bone loss, weight gain, high blood pressure and depression. All are health problems that have reached epidemic proportions in the United States as well as in other developed, high-tech societies.
But after some good belly laughter, our blood vessels dilate and relax and our blood pressure is lowered.
Utilizing ultrasound equipment, researchers have measured the diameter of subjects’ blood vessels before and after a 10-minute laughter session. They found a 22 percent increase in vessel diameter lasting five to six hours or longer after a session of laughter.
This is hard scientific proof of the health benefits of laughter, and the results of this experiment are readily reproducible.
The Cancer Treatment Centers of America have trained 25 people to be “laughter leaders,” and they are integrating laughter in the treatment of cancer. I think this is about as solid a validation as we could find to support the health benefits of laughter.
As long ago as 3,000 years, monks practiced a form of laughter in their meditation, chanting “Huh! Huh! Huh!” as they expelled breath.
Today’s laughter movement was started in India by Madan Kataria, a medical doctor. He held 20-minute laughter breaks on the hospital lawn to energize and lift the spirits of hospital workers.
Today, the movement has become worldwide.
Terminal seriousness can be sidetracked. Yes, it can. A well-timed joke can do wonders, like the wisecrack by an American soldier who, along with others, was about to make a beachhead landing during World War II. Tension in the boat was unbearable until he yelled out, “Anybody wanna buy a good used watch?”
The ensuing laughter gave those men a few moments of blessed relief from their overwhelming fear. What courage, what timing.
Terminal seriousness? Give it up.
Long live laughter.