Laughter Therapy

 

Dr Madan Kataria'sworld famous laughter yoga website www.laughteryoga.org Full article http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/biology/b103/f01/web2/chew.html The most famous story of laughter as medicine is that of Norman Cousins. Norman Cousins had been the editor of the Saturday Review for over thirty years, and has written numerous books including Anatomy of an Illness. In 1964, Norman Cousins returned home from a meeting in Moscow experiencing severe joint pain and with fever. He was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, a collagen illness that attacks the connective tissues of the body, most likely due to exposure to heavy-metal poisoning. Cousins questioned this diagnosis because his wife had been with him, but experienced none of the symptoms. He began to research the effects of stress on the body, and learned that it could be detrimental to the immune system. Cousins read of the theory that negative emotions be harmful to the body, and so hypothesized that if the negative emotions were detrimental to your health, then the positive emotions should improve health. Cousins, still battling his ailment, was being treated with high doses of painkillers, which he realized were being harmful to his body. This realization motivated him to prescribe himself a medication of a different sort. He hired a nurse who would read him humorous stories, and play for him Marx Brothers movies. This proved to be effective, as in very little time, Cousins was off of all painkillers and sleeping pills. He found that the laughter relieved pain and would help him sleep. Cousins published his story and his claims of the benefits of laughter, but was received with much criticism. In 1989, it was finally acknowledged in the Journal of the American Medical Association that laughter therapy could help to improve the quality of life for patients with chronic illnesses, and that laughter has an immediate symptom-relieving effect.(5). The increase in threshold for pain during laughter that Cousins experienced has been confirmed in laboratory studies. Since Norman Cousins declared that he "laughed himself out of" a deadly disease, scientists have theorized that laughter has the ability to strengthen the human immune system.(3).  "The human race has only one really effective weapon, and that's laughter. The moment it arises, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations and resentments slip away, and a sunny spirit takes their place." This, said by Mark Twain is what, as of present, we can be certain to assert about the effects of laughter on the body. It is clinically believed that when used in addition to conventional care, laughter can reduce pain and aid and speed the healing process. It has been shown that laughter has the ability to enhance conventional treatments, but not replace them. In many studies, we have seen laughter to have miraculous effects, such as relieving stress, and increasing threshold for pain. Laughter is so miraculous partially because it works as a prescription drug, but is entirely natural and has no negative side effects. As shown with Norman Cousins, laughter can even save lives.

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