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