LAUGH MEANS GOOD HEALTH

Humour and laughter have a good effect on your immune system.

WHEN was the last time you laughed really hard — a hearty, side splitting belly laugh that suddenly grabbed you and sent you reeling out of control?

Modern science is beginning to confirm that this kind of laughter is not only enjoyable but also health promoting. Laughter is an invigorating tonic that heightens and brightens the mood, gently releasing us from tensions and social constraints.

Best antidote

Laughter is an affirmation of our humaneness, a face saving way to express our anxieties, fears and other hidden emotions to others. It breaks the ice, builds trust and draws us together into a common state of well-being.

Humour may be one of our best antidotes to stressful situations. When confronted with a threatening situation, animals have two situations either they flee or they fight. We humans have a second alternative: to laugh. By seeing the humour in stressful situations we may be able to change our responses to the threat. When we laugh, we simply cannot be worrying deeply at the same time.

What research shows?

If you hate to do a regular workout, laughter may be the exercise programme you've been looking for! Laughter is called "inner jogging". A robust laugh gives the muscles of your face, shoulders, diaphragm and abdomen a good workout. Heart rate and blood pressure temporarily rise, breathing becomes faster and deeper and oxygen surges through your bloodstream. Sometimes your muscles go limp and your blood pressure temporarily may fall, leaving you in a mellow euphoria. A good laugh can burn up as many calories per hour as brisk walking.

During a good hearty laugh, your brain orchestrates hormonal rushes that rouse you to a high-level alertness and numb pain. Researchers speculate that laughter triggers the release of endomorphines, the brains opiates. This may account for the pain relief that accompanies laughter.

It has been long recognised that stress weakens the immune system, thereby increasing the vulnerability to illnesses. Only in the mid 1980s, however, did researchers study the impact of humour and laughter on the immune system. Research showing that individuals with a better sense of humour have stronger immune systems is important since it shows the importance of making the effort to improve your sense of humour.

How to use humour

Babies start to laugh when they are 10 weeks old: six weeks later they are laughing about once every hour. Four-year-olds laugh once every four minutes. The average grown up is said to laugh only about 15 times per day. Sadly, our culture seems to inhibit humour. We learn to associate growing up with "getting serious" and being serious is somehow associated with being solemn and humourless. Sometimes we repress our good humour, because we are afraid that others will think we are frivolous or foolish. Here are some suggestions for repairing your sense of humour and regaining healthy laughter.

Expose yourself to humour: There is a lot of funny material around. Actively seek out things that make you laugh.

Keep a humour journal: Get into the habit of listening to the unintentionally amusing remark. Watch for the wonderfully funny young children spontaneously say or write. Listen for the amusing slips of tongue or the amusing error or the clever pun.

Tell a joke: Having a good sense of humour doesn't mean you have to have a store of jokes or tell them perfectly. Do not worry about how well you are telling it. Sometimes screwing up the delivery can create something that's even funnier than the original joke.

Laugh at yourself: Focus on yourself rather than others. If you expect to do everything right all of the time, then you can't afford to have a sense of humour. But if you can allow yourself the inevitable mistakes and stupidities then you can laugh at yourself. Those who can laugh at themselves have a much stronger sense of self worth and higher esteem than those who can't. The real test of seeing whether or not you can laugh at yourself is if you can take a bit of teasing. We all need a few things that we are willing to be teased about by our nearest and dearest. But they really do have to be things you can see the funny side of too.

Try humour instead of anxiety or anger: A stressful situation can sometimes be transformed into a bit of fun if you can see the humour in it. Next time you are livid about something try to make your point with humour instead of anger. Humour can also help reduce anxiety. If you are terrified of speaking in public or of making a presentation, for example, imagine your audience wearing funny hats. Practise by imagining a stressful situation. Then invent a humorous response to it and rehearse it.

Hang out with happy people: Make sure that people around you are fun to be with. Certain people make you feel relaxed and happy. Others are too depressing, or relentlessly serious. Try to avoid getting bogged down by them. Spend more time with people who boost your mood.

Put on a happy face: Research has shown that just changing your facial muscles can set off different physiological changes. It can also trigger different thoughts that affect moods of sadness, happiness and anger. So when we put on a happy face in times of adversity, we are actually changing our neurohormone levels and they change our moods. So if you can't laugh, smile. And if you can't smile, fake it.

Avoid negative humour: Not all humour is positive and healthy. Watch out for scorn, sarcasm, ridicule and contempt and inappropriate humour. And don't joke about people's names. They have to live with them. It is important to be sensitive to each occasion and know what humour really helps.

Humour therapy

"The art of medicine consists of keeping the patient amused while nature heals the disease." Chances are that you have never been in a hospital with a humour programme. If ever there are two things that don't go together, it is humour and hospitals.

The last decade has seen a revolution in healthcare as more and more hospitals become convinced of the therapeutic power of humour. Patients increasingly demand more personalised relationships with caregivers and humour helps establish it.

The best-known approach to bringing humour and laughter to the hospital settings is the use of clowns. Another common approach is to create a humour cart. This can be wheeled into the patient's rooms and has funny audio and videotapes, books of cartoons, games and funny props.

A few hospitals have entire rooms devoted to fun and humour for ambulatory patients. One of the first humour rooms was established at St. Joseph's hospital in Houston, the U.S.

Humour can be a powerful medicine and laughter can be contagious. It's reassuring in these days of deadly epidemics and sometimes painful, expensive medical treatments that laughter is cheap and effective. And the only side effect is pleasure.