Tuesday, January 23, 2007 Laughter is no joke By Henrylito D. Tacio Regarding Henry
JOSEPH Addison once said, "Man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter." To which Friedrich Nietzsche advices, "You must laugh 10 times during the day, and be cheerful; otherwise your stomach, the father of affliction, will disturb you in the night."
And science has recently proven what "Reader's Digest" has been claiming through these years about laughter. That laughter is, indeed, "the best medicine."
According to a study published in "The International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine," people hit by severe diseases have better survival chances if they can laugh easily. To recruit participants for the study, the researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and St. Olav's Hospital in Trondheim, invited all patients known to have chronic kidney failure.
The patients, severely ill, depended for survival on weekly dialysis, which cleans the blood of substances that the kidneys would normally filter out. "This diagnosis is a life-threatening condition that calls upon coping skills and regular dialysis," the investigators wrote.
Forty-one of these 52 invitees joined the study, for which they answered questions about their age, gender, education and quality of life. They also answered questions designed to gauge their propensity to laugh. For instance, a question would describe a situation that different people might see as either comical or annoying; the participant would be asked whether he or she would likely laugh.
If the patient belonged to the half of the group that scored higher on sense of humor, he or she "increased their odds for survival by on average 31 percent," independent of other known health characteristics, the researchers wrote.
Previous research has found that laughter may be good for the heart. In 2000, cardiologists at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore announced that they had found heart disease patients were 40 percent less likely to laugh in a variety of situations compared to people of the same age without heart disease.
In 2003, Japanese researchers announced that a little laughter around the dinner table might help people with Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease. Subjects in the small study, published in the journal "Diabetes Care," had less of a spike in post-meal blood sugar levels after watching a Japanese comedy show than when they listened to a monotonous lecture.
"I made the joyous discovery that ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep," wrote Normal Cousins in his 1979 bestseller, "Anatomy of an Illness." The longtime American magazine editor battled a painful and crippling arthritic disease called ankylosing spondylitis.
Having a good laugh has long been thought of as therapeutic. Laughter has been taught by yoga masters in India, home to a growing number of "laughing clubs" whose members get together just to enjoy a chuckle.
Unknown to many, laughter is contagious: you can catch it without asking for it, or even necessarily wanting it. Now, scientists say they have an idea of why. Researchers at University College London and Imperial College London have found that positive sounds such as laughter or a triumphant "woo hoo!" trigger a strong response in the listener's brain.
This response occurs in a brain area that's activated when we smile, as though preparing our facial muscles to laugh, the scientists said. The findings appear in the recent issue of "The Journal of Neuroscience."
"It seems that it's absolutely true that 'laugh and the whole world laughs with you'," said Sophie Scott of University College London, one of the researchers. "We've known for some time now that when we are talking to someone, we often mirror their behavior, copying the words they use and mimicking their gestures. Now we've shown that the same appears to apply to laughter, too at least at the level of the brain."
The research team played a series of sounds to volunteers while scanning their brains with functional magnetic resonance imaging, a technology that measures brain activity based on blood flow in the brain.
Some of the sounds were positive, such as laughter or triumph; others were unpleasant, such as screaming or retching. All were found to trigger activity in the brain's "premotorcortical region," which prepares the muscles in the face to respond accordingly.
But the response was greater for positive sounds, suggesting that these were more contagious than negative sounds, according to group. The British researchers believe this explains why we respond to laughter or cheering with an involuntary smile. "We usually encounter positive emotions, such as laughter or cheering, in group situations, whether watching a comedy program with family or a football game with friends," Scott said.
"This response in the brain, automatically priming us to smile or laugh, provides a way of mirroring the behavior of others, something which helps us interact socially. It could play an important role in building strong bonds between individuals in a group."
"Something special happens when people laugh together over something genuinely funny, and not hurtful to anyone. It's like a magic rain that showers down feelings of comfort, safety and belonging to a group," Mary Jane Belfie once pointed out.
Maxwell Maltz advised: "Get into the habit of laughing; too many of us have forgotten how to laugh. As people grow older, they sometimes forget that they ever laughed. It is a part of their childhood that they can no longer remember."
Finally, here's a joke that will tickle your funny bone. Separated from his travel group in the Sahara Desert, a tourist begged a passing nomad for water. "Sorry," said the tribesman. "I have no water, but I do have a selection of lovely ties for sale."
"You must be crazy," the tourist replied. Close to death from thirst, he saw another nomad. "Water!" he gasped. "Give me some water." "I have no water," came the reply, "only these handsome ties that I'd be glad to sell you."
The tourist stumbled on until, to his astonishment, he saw a magnificent hotel far in the distance. Crawling at last into the lobby, he croaked, "Please give me water." "I'm sorry, sir," the doorman said. "We don't let anyone in without a tie." Do you find the joke funny? Well, buy a copy of Reader's Digest and read more of its featured jokes.
