Laughter?  Truly the best medicine?

Rahman Mohamed

Should all hospitals hire clowns or at least mandate an hour of a doctor’s working day should truly be just to make jokes and make patients laugh?  Research has actually found that humour has an effect on not just the respiratory system (the organs that work together to ensure you can “ha”, but has an effect on the nervous system (the neurol chord that connect the body to the brain), the cardiovascular system (the tubes that carry blood around the body, from and to the heart), and the immune system (the part of your body that goes into high gear when you’re sick).

In a paper entitled “Laugh Yourself into a Healthier Person: A Cross Cultural Analysis of the Effects of Varying Levels of Laughter on Health” published in International Journal of Medical Sciences (2009), researchers Hunaid Hasan and Tasneem Fatema Hasan write that “Kataria M, at the School of Laughter Yoga, described laughter as a “powerful form of exercise that gives you more of a cardiovascular workout than many ‘regular’ aerobic activities.” (Laughing at the jogger could be more beneficial than the jog?).

It began with

Previous studies have only determined the effect of laughter on various health dimensions, whereas, this study quantified the level of laughter that was beneficial or detrimental to health. There were a total of 730 participants between the ages of eighteen and thirty-nine years.

Participants were in Aurangabad, India and Mississauga, Canada.  Although the parts of the brain that cause the body to laugh may only be understood by a neuroscientist, they do know what parts of the brain control laughter.  Not only that, all parts of the brain is teaming up to decide whether you giggle, snort, or laugh like a Looney Tune for two hours (just like the vomit, sore leg, and fever team up to keep you in bed for 2 weeks).

Research found that “patients who were suffering from myocardial infarction were 40% less likely to laugh.”  At the same time laughter was “prophylactic”, aka play a role in preventing myocardial infarction.  It also found that while stress decreased blood flow by 35%, laughter increased blood flow by 22% (laughter is better than stress; no joke).

Together with oxygen to all parts of the body, the blood takes away the carbon dioxide and delivers the food to the organs; it takes away their waste too.  Seems laughter does do more work than just robbing us of our breath.

Although the immune system does work with the cardiovascular system (the immune system use the blood roads so they don’t have to build any extra), it does its own job.  It’s the fighter in the human body battling the flu, cold, and other illnesses; it was even fighting COVID (COVID was just smarter; evolving).  The study even found that laughter decreased the bad stress hormones and “fortified activity of natural killer (NK) cells, activated T cells and B cells and increased Ig levels”; laughing in the face of illness (whether or not you wear a mask) might help your body recover.

There has been research and papers written behind the social and mental support of the laugh.  The World Health Organization defined health as a “state of physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or bodily infirmity.”  Since human beings are considered social fauna, interaction in groups is considered vital to good mental and social health.  Laughing in a social group, in society – at the leaders, with the leaders, or something else, is beneficial to multiple parts of a human’s health.

The only prerequisite for the study was English literacy.  That doesn’t mean you can only use English to make jokes; the survey was just written in English.  It included how often someone laughed.  So making jokes in another language to laugh can be beneficial, as long as you laugh.

The study also found that how much you laugh in a day might be a good prediction of how satisfied you are with life.  Participants in Aurangabad, India were more satisfied with life than those in Mississauga, Canada; maybe Mississauga should participate with their neighbour Toronto’s tradition of bashing politicians.

At the same time if you laugh at an extreme compared to the population, extremely high or extremely low, it might play a role in your health.  In Aurangabad people who laughed less showed more health difficulties but not a significant difference from the general population.  In Mississauga the opposite was found, was found that people who laughed more had more health difficulties, specifically respiratory diseases. Go with the flow.

The central reason behind this study was showing mental and physical health through laughter; because laughter has physical and mental components, it can be used.  Although it was found to be present in both samples, in Mississauga there was a clear bidirectional relation between physical health and emotional health through laughter.

Surgical Services Management; Denver published a short study by Nikki Arnett entitled “A laugh a day” (1998); it begins with “Modern medical science has begun to rediscover the physiological benefits of laughter for patients”.  Back in the 13th century they not only did doctors conduct surgery but had anaesthesia too!  It was laughter.  Later on, in the 16th century the doctors began to prescribe laughter for colds and depression.

Today, together will all the tools of the 21st century, at Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City, they’re researching and using laughter in the “Medical Institute of Recovery Through Humor (MIRTH)”.  Some of the findings include a chuckle raising the body’s temperature by half a degree, “pulse and blood pressure increase concomitantly then drop below baseline and gradually return to prior readings”, reduction of boredom, depression, and back pain, increase in self-esteem and increase sensitivity to inner feelings – patients were able to provide insight into a situation.

Looking at the results of the study MIRTH was created “to combine the healing benefits of humor with the best medical care to promote patient wellness”.  Today it includes rehabilitation staff workers but there is hope that it will become “a vehicle for humor research”.  There are different elements of used to bring a smile or laugh to a patient like dogs and clowns.  Or sometimes even just the doctor or nurse (if they allow it).

Maybe hospitals should hire clowns; laughter is beneficial for health.