What is Laughter part 2 :~)

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What is Laughter part 2Scientific research into the health benefits of laughterThe

most famous example of laughter helping health comes from the life of

Norman Cousins who wrote a book about his experience called 'Anatomy of

an Illness'. Suffering from a degenerative disease of the spine, he

checked himself out of hospital where they were filling him with

steroids and booked into a hotel room. There he spent time watching

funny videos such as the Marx Brothers and Candid Camera (this was in

the late 60's!) and took large doses of Vitamin C. He noticed that

following a heavy bout of laughter he could have two pain free hours of

sleep, and in time he was able to recover from this potentially fatal

disease.This was because the endorphins (the body's natural

morphine) released during laughter acted as a painkiller and also gave

him a euphoric feeling - the natural high. Although at the time we did

not know this, Norman was also boosting his immune system. (More about

this latest research further on).Norman Cousins said, "Laughter

is an antidote to apprehension and panic. It creates a mood in which

the other positive emotions can be put to work too. " When you laugh

you are more likely to see the bright side of a situation and have a

more positive outlook, which ultimately promotes healing."Researchers

at UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Centre tested the pain responses

of 21 healthy children by measuring their sensitivity to ice-cold

water. Children were asked to watch videos before, during and after

placing their arm in the water. Margaret Stuber M.D. summed up the

findings by saying, "If they laughed beforehand, they said the cold

water didn't feel so bad. If they laughed during the experiment they

were able to do it longer". Stuber also said those children reporting

less pain had lower blood levels of cortisol (a stress hormone) than

other children, which may affect their sensitivity to pain.Although

more research is needed, if laughter does increase the body's pain

threshold, then a good prescription is to laugh hard and long. Unlike

painkillers, laughter is free and it has no side effects."

Fry M.D. a Stanford University Medical School Professor has studied the

effects of laughter upon the human body. He finds that laughter gives

the heart a workout, supplies the lungs with oxygen, stimulates the

brain, actives the immune system and suppresses stress hormones. He

says that laughing 100-200 times a day is the cardiovascular equivalent

of rowing for ten minutes.In a journal of the National Cancer

Institute a recent report studied ten healthy men watching an hour-long

humorous video. An increase in interferon-gamma was noted in them. This

is an important healing chemical in the immune system!Dr Lee

Berk & Stanley Tan of the Loma University Medical Centre in

California have conducted numerous studies on the effect of laughter on

the body. They studied volunteers who watched funny videos and noted

favourable physiological changes. They tell us that Laughter is

actually the flip side of stress. It lowers cortisol while increasing

endorphins. High levels of cortisol suppress the immune system and

cause blood pressure to rise. On the other hand, laughter increases

your natural killer cells and T-cells that attack viruses and even some

cancer cells.Through analysis of blood samples from the people watching the videos and experiencing mirthful laughter they found that: * Cortisol levels diminished and remained at low levels well into the recovery phase * Immunoglobins, IgG, IgA, and IgM increased during the comedy and remained elevated during the recovery phase

* Natural Killer Cells (NK) activity in experimental subjects increased

significantly and remained elevated during the recovery phase *

Plasma Cytokine Gamma Interferon levels increased in subjects viewing

the laughter video and remained elevated during the recovery phaseResearchers

at Indiana State University studied women who laughed out loud to funny

films, as compared to those watching a boring tourism video. They found

that when samples of Natural Killer immune cells (which attack cancer

cells) were mixed with cancer cells, the immune systems of the people

who laughed out loud were BOOSTED BY UP TO 40%, compared to those who

had watched the tourism film. Dr who led the research

said, "This could be clinically important. The use of humour to

stimulate laughter could be an effective complementary therapy to

decrease stress and improve natural killer cell activity in persons

with viral illness or cancer."Happy people are more resistant to coldsDr

Sheldon Cohen of Carnegie Mellon University squirted 334 volunteers

with a cold virus, and found that those with a "positive emotional

style reported fewer symptoms". People who are depressed, angry or

nervous are three times more likely to get ill than those who are more

energetic, relaxed and happy. Science Editor of THE TELEGRAPH 22.7.2003Research

at the University of Wisconsin-Madison revealed that the part of the

brain that controls happy emotions could stimulate the immune system to

work harder. People who had high activity in the left side of the

prefrontal cortex, the side associated with positive thinking, have

much stronger immune systems. Neuroscientist on who led

the study said it was the first to show a direct link between brain

activity and the body's defences. "Emotions play an important role in

modulating body systems that influence our health. We turned to the

brain to understand the mechanisms by which the mind influences the

body. Numerous studies have shown that people who think positively tend

to become ill less frequently and to recover more quickly than those

with a negative attitude." Science Correspondent THE TIMES 2.9.2003~Laughter YogaSMILE!Love~Karma