Laughter Is The Best Medicine

Patients, doctors and health-care professionals are all finding that laughter may indeed be the best medicine.

Laughing is found to lower blood pressure, reduce stress hormones, increase muscle flexion, and boost immune function by raising levels of infection-fighting T-cells, disease-fighting proteins called Gamma-interferon and B-cells, which produce disease-destroying antibodies. Laughter also triggers the release of endorphins, the body's natural painkillers, and produces a general sense of well-being.

Laughter is infectious. Hospitals around the country are incorporating formal and informal laughter therapy programs into their therapeutic regimens. In countries such as India, laughing clubs -- in which participants gather in the early morning for the sole purpose of laughing -- are becoming as popular as Rotary Clubs in the United States.

Humor is a universal language. It's a contagious emotion and a natural diversion. It brings other people in and breaks down barriers. Best of all it is free and has no known side reactions.

B.C. is a Humorologist who teaches Humor Therapy. His website is www.worldwidebc.com

Laught To Lose Weight

By Victoria WesselerLifestyle, Gardening, and Culinary Writer.

Every once in a while I run across a bit of information that sounds just too good to be true. When I heard that a group of researchers from Vanderbilt University’s Department of Medicine announced that laughing caused people to burn extra calories, I just had to investigate it.

I wondered if there could be at least a kernel of truth in their study, which hinted that laughter might be a way to lose weight. After all, studies have shown that laughter, which has been said for years to be good medicine, can enhance the immune system, reduce stress, and keep our hearts healthy.

That's all great, but what could it do for my waistline? Could I laugh my way back into my skinny jeans? Before I replaced my hour on the treadmill with an hour of watching my favorite sitcoms, I thought I should investigate the study’s findings.Turns out that the study is real and does, in fact, show that genuine laughter causes an increase in energy expenditure.

The study’s methodology and results were recently printed in the International Journal of Obesity (2007) 31, 131-137. Note the use of the term genuine. The researchers say that fake laughter, such as the giggle you force out at an old joke told for the tenth time by your distant (but not distant enough) relative at a holiday dinner, doesn’t count.

To be beneficial, the laughter has to be a sincere, spontaneous laugh.If you get a chance to read the entire study, you’d probably find it pretty interesting. But I’ll cut to the chase. The bottom line is that during genuine laughter, as compared to a resting state, we expend between 10–20 percent more energy, and our heart rate is increased by the same amount.

The good news is that 15 minutes of laughter can burn between 10–40 calories. The bad news is that it’s just not enough to replace even the lightest daily form of exercise or intense physical activity. But, not to be discouraged, at the end of the study’s results, the researchers note, “This amount [15 minutes per day] of energy expenditure during 1 year with no changes in other components of energy balance, may translate into an annual weight loss [of approximately 1–4 pounds of body weight], if all other components of energy balance remained unchanged.”

I say that beats gaining 1–4 pounds a year!So, we now have scientific proof that laughter is good for our figures. And, as we all know, there are few things better for eliciting hale and hearty belly laughs than time spent with your best female friends. The friendships that we have with close female friends are literally life sustaining.

Numerous studies show that people who lack in friendships and are isolated from others die earlier than those who have close friends in whom they can confide and with whom they can share good times. Yet despite all their value, we have fewer friends than ever before. In June 2006, USA Today noted that 25 percent of all Americans have no close confidants in their lives.

Apparently, in the face of demanding schedules and overloaded daily activities, we often place non-relative relationships at the end of our “to do” list.Making a conscious effort to see our friends regularly is important. Whether it’s a monthly brunch, a weekly game night, or a semi-annual “ladies-only weekend at the cabin,” we have to plan and commit to nurturing and investing our time in these relationships.

Every year, I hold an annual “ladies-only” party where I invite my friends and ask them to invite one or two of their friends as guests. Anywhere from 50 to 60 women show up. For 11 years the party theme was chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate. Guests each brought sinful chocolate desserts to share with each other. In 2005 and 2006, the theme was announced as a “Ladies Only Pajamarama and Cocktail Party.”

Tiaras and feather boas were noted on the invitation as optional, but highly encouraged. My friends did not disappointment me with their attire. I had no idea so many of them owned tiaras and boas. Obviously, they were just waiting for the perfect excuse to wear them in public. Even my neighbor’s female Weimaraner dressed in full party regalia—no one could figure out how that dog kept a tiara on her head and a white feather boa around her neck all night.

Take a few minutes today to think about those wonderful women you are privileged to call your friends. Where would you be without them in your life? They soothe your spirit. They feed your soul. They lift you up as only another person in your life can. They help you through significant life passages. They are there to dry your eyes when you are defeated and applaud you when you succeed. They understand you better than you understand yourself. They want what’s best for you.

They create a safe place to discuss your dreams and fears. They are Lucy to our Ethel; Laverne to our Shirley; Monica to our Rachel. And, maybe best of all, just when you think all is lost, they’re the ones that always give you plenty of reasons to break into a healthy, calorie-burning, genuine laugh!

Victoria Wesseler is a lifestyle, gardening and culinary writer. She is a weekly featured columnist for CDKitchen.com and has been published in Cooking Pleasures, Out Here, Indianapolis DINE magazine, and Indianapolis Monthly HOME Magazine. She has written and produced culinary segments for broadcast on WKYT in Lexington, KY.

Humor Therapy. What Is It?

HUMOR THERAPY: WHAT IS IT?[From the American Cancer Society]

Comical or amusing entertainment. A quality that appeals to the sense of the ridiculous. That's what the dictionary calls humor. But in considering humor as a useful complementary therapy, scientists look at the possible release of endorphins that occurs when we laugh.

They see humor as a distraction from stress and pain.Humor as therapy is its deliberate use to provide symptom relief. This happens because humor reduces the natural stresses of illness and distracts the patient from pain. It is useful for treating people with physical and emotional problems.

The value of humor has been confirmed to the point that many hospitals and ambulatory care centers now have incorporated special rooms where materials - and sometimes people - are there to help make people laugh. Materials include movies, audio and videotapes, books, games, and puzzles for patients of every age. Movies and TV shows by popular comedians from Laurel and Hardy to Bob Hope and Bob Newhart, humorous songs, the joke of the day on the Internet, the one paragraph jokes and funny stories from the Readers' Digest, all have value in helping patients who would otherwise have little to laugh about.

A hospital in North Carolina created a "laughmobile" that visits bedridden patients. Many hospitals throughout the nation now use volunteer groups who visit patients with carts full of humor devices, including slapstick items such as water pistols and rubber chickens. They visit patients who are fighting cancer and other serious illnesses, providing an oasis of laughter during an otherwise difficult time.With all of the various objects and techniques, the goal is similar and simple: make patients laugh and help them put aside their fears, their concerns about health, and their discomforts.

BC is a speaker/author on Humor Therapy. His website is www.worldwidebc.com

Fun and the Bottom Line: Using Humor to Retain Employees

Article by David Granirer*
Humor for Retaining EmployeesPicture this: a team of welfare workers on the front-lines of a poor neighborhood, serving difficult, high-needs clients. And if that’s not tough enough, each has a caseload of about 300 and works for an organization undergoing massive funding cuts, downsizing, and policy changes.
But every day after coffee, it's the same. The supervisor and two workers appear in the reception area. "What song do you wanna hear? Do you wanna hear Jazz? Rock? Folk?" Then, "playing" accordion folders and staple removers as finger cymbals, they launch into the world’s worst rendition of "Across The Universe" by John Lennon, to the hysterical laughter of their colleagues.
"It's our way of keeping up morale," says a team member. "We're so overwhelmed, so stressed, so burned out. This is how we keep our sanity."
As more and more organizations reengineer, merge, restructure, downsize, rightsize, and even capsize, employees confront uncertainty on an almost daily basis. The rules keep changing in terms of what they're supposed to do, how they’re supposed to do it, who they do it for, and whether they get to do it at all.
And since most have little or no control over the making of these rules, the result is often a sense of powerlessness that translates into increased stress, decreased wellness, demoralization, absenteeism, and lower productivity, all of which affect rates of retaining employees. And we all know that people are an organization’s number one asset, and losing them costs money.
So the big question for both individuals and organizations is: how do you keep up spirits, continue to work effectively, and maintain health and sanity in a crazy-making situation? The team of welfare workers described chooses to laugh.
They could also choose despair, cynicism, bitterness, or negativity, but instead team members choose laughter. As one worker states, "We could either cry, or we could laugh, but you can only cry for so long. We’d had enough of crying, and it was time to do something else."
So, how do you help employees, who have little or no control over external events, survive a crazy-making situation? Organizations need to encourage employees to take control over the one aspect of the situation they do control - how they choose to respond to it.
And on those days where workers feel overwhelmed, overworked, and have no idea what's going to happen next, the only rational, life-affirming response is to go find some colleagues, and break out the clown noses, kazoos, and Groucho glasses.
Why Laughter?Why is laughter such a positive choice? We all know that it makes us feel good, but in today’s bottom-line oriented workplace, the term "feel good" is too nebulous to have much impact on how people go about structuring their job interactions and professional relationships.
And most organizations are not going to promote humor as part of their culture because some "touchy feely" wellness devotee thinks that having the boss come to work dressed as a chicken will create a happy afterglow.
So any discussion of the benefits of laughter needs to be more tangible and focused on addressing positive morale, a major factor contributing to retaining valued employees. Remember though, humor is a coping mechanism to aid in retaining employees, not a cure-all for other systemic problems affecting organizations.
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*David Granirer, M.A., is North America's Psychotherapist/Stand-up Comic. David gives laughter in the workplace presentations for hundreds of organizations throughout North America. For more information or to receive his free email newsletter "Get More Laughter In Your Life!" call (604) 205-9242 or go to David's web site.

B.C. is a professional speaker/author/musician/magician/storyteller who speaks on Humor Therapy He may be contacted at www.worldwidebc.com