Laughter Really Is The Best Medicine

It is easy to get so serious that we forget to laugh and that is unfortunate because laughter can be very healing to our emotions and bodies. Laughter relieves stress. Researchers have found that the positive emotions associated with laughter decrease stress hormones and increase certain immune cells while activating others.

People are even beginning to practice a new thing called Laughter Yoga. Turns out, it didn’t have anything to do with yoga at all. I signed up for a class and quickly realized that it wasn’t for me because I’m a working person, who just didn’t feel the need to drive a half an hour during my work day to go laugh for an hour and drive another have an hour back. The whole class was about laughing, and making each other laugh. If you know a cancer patient, I would highly recommend the class as someone with a medical challenge quickly gets their whole life focused on their problem, pain, medication and next doctor appointment. They need something outside of that rat race to channel their minds in a positive direction.

In one study conducted at Loma Linda University School of Medicine in Califo
ia, 10 healthy men who watched a funny video for an hour had significant increases in one particular hormone of the immune system that activates other components of the immune system.

In the 90’s there was an odd thing that happened in some of the churches. People began to laugh spontaneously during serious sermons. You can only imagine how well that was accepted in the beginning. But some people began to realize that the Holy Spirit was present and that God seemed to be doing a new thing and that the laughter was spontaneously healing people. While I never experienced the laughter in church, I did on my way home one night. My daughter was having a serious conversation with a guest that had attended church with us. I began to have a low giggle that I was trying to hold in. Soon my daughter because annoyed and said, ‘Will you stop that!” But as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she realized that it was a form of the manifestation that had been happening at church. I certainly didn’t seem to have any control over it and I’m a very controlled person, so that was both unsettling and freeing at the same time.

Another time shortly after, my son was sleepwalking carrying a pillow and I was trying to guide him back to his bed. He huffed and puffed at me and said something and threw his pillow, which landed, between the toilet and the wall (he seemed to think it was his bed). I began to laugh so hard at the idea that my son could even back talk me in his sleep that I laughed until I was on all fours on the floor and snot was coming out of my nose. I asked him the next day if he remembered anything about the incident and he said that he remembered me “yelling at him.” I told him that I was laughing not yelling. Such a silly little moment in my life but that little moment did wonders to free me up emotionally.

Find reasons to laugh. Laughter up can really ignite your immune system. n