H = Humour
Laughter is a powerful medicine. It is quite physical, massaging all our internal organs. Humour can aid physical healing. Comedy also gives our mind a rest. What are your own favourite comedies? Personally I love the YouTube videos of Simons Cat - but I am less keen on series such as You've Been Framed and the Japanese Takeshi Castle. So often these gain laughs at someone else's expense. I am sure some of the subjects must have sustained quite serious injuries, so that spoils the fun for me. On UK television the classics of Dad's Army, Fawlty Towers, Citizen Khan and Outnumbered are among mine. Have you come across Laughter-Yoga? Laughter really is the best medicine.
When you laugh at anything it reduces our stress-levels. But when we can learn to laugh at ourselves it is even more powerful.
Laughing at Yourself
I remember when I was in my early 20's, quite a serious-natured and self-conscious individual, I was working in a hospital as an Occupational Therapy Assistant. We had a kitchen where stroke-patients could practise cooking before they went home. There were cookers and work-surfaces against one wall while there was a large table in the middle. At lunchtime we staff sat here to eat our sandwiches. There were some complicated and tricky relationship-dynamics within our department which could be quite prickly and fickle. I had not been working there very long and was still quite insecure. Our mealtime was an emotional minefield so I tended to stay quiet. I did not - as yet - have any particular friends among my colleagues.
One day, just as I walked through the door into this kitchen, to join my colleagues at the table for lunch, a shelf broke. It happened precisely as I stepped through the door. The shelf was wide and stretched all along the wall, above the cookers. It was right beside me and held all the pans and utensils required for the cooking. Now, quite suddenly, all these empty pans and baking utensils came crashing down, bouncing from cooker to cooker and cascading around me in a flood. Nothing actually hit me, as I remember, except the sound - as piles of pans bounced off each other and landed at my feet. I froze. I was in shock and absolutely mortified. Everyone was laughing. They were laughing at me. I just wanted the ground to open up and swallow me up. But somehow, quite spontaneously, I found myself laughing too. Now instead of the laughter being directed at me, it was shared laughter.
As I joined in the laughter I noticed a massive difference in my emotions. They changed instantly from the excruciating emotional pain and utter embarrassment that the incident had caused to a light-hearted feeling of silliness and being an integral part of the shared emotion as I was embraced by the laughter. I was almost giddy with the happiness we were sharing. I think we all were. Somehow all the tensions between us melted away and friendship blossomed. The laughter enabled us all to connect on a deep emotional level. Just for a while there were no tensions, no cliques, no hierarchies. We were simply friends, sharing our laughter, laughing together at the ridiculous situation and nobody was laughing at me or anyone else any more. Although this incident happened over 40 years ago I don't simply remember the experience - I can feel those emotions as if it were yesterday.
Reflection
Stop reading and reflect on your own experiences of this for a minute. Can you think of times when you have been able to laugh at a situation - or at something you have inadvertently done - and the laughter has healed your heart and swept away all traces of stress?
Gelotology
If you look up laughter online there are many studies which have shown how beneficial laughter can be. Here is a summary of information about the power of laughter which I found from just one website - https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/talking-about-trauma/201311/lol-how-laughter-can-improve-your-health.
Gelotology, the study of laughter, was established in the late 1960s in an effort to determine the possible physiological and psychological effects humour and laughter can have. William F. Fry, a Professor Emeritus at Stanford University, has done extensive research on the physiological benefits of laughter with very encouraging findings. “Mirthful laughter" he reports, "has a scientifically demonstrable exercise impact on several body systems.... Muscles are activated, heart rate is increased, respiration is simplified with increase in oxygen exchange -all similar to the desirable effects of athletic exercise.” Fry has noted the importance of humour and laughter as powerful stress reducers demonstrating why laughter may be a useful therapeutic tool. “Stress is antagonised by humour in both its mental or emotional aspect and its physical aspect. Emotional tension contributing to stress, is lowered through the cathartic effects of humour. Mirthful laughter is followed by a state of compensatory physical relaxation, diminishing physical tension.”
Ramon Mora-Ripoll, medical scientific director at Organizacién Mundial de la Risa, Barcelona Spain - reports from his research that humour and laughter can release physical and emotional tension, improve immune functioning, stimulate circulation, elevate mood, enhance cognitive functioning and, not surprisingly, increase friendliness.
Laughter Clubs
The many psychological and physiological benefits inspired Wilson to start the World Laughter Tour. “Every day there is more news about the power of humour and laughter to heal us physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually... Every system of the body responds to laughter in some important, positive, healing way.” Wilson and his colleagues have designed training programs geared toward training Certified Laughter Leaders. CLLs go on to establish Laughter Clubs in their local communities where they share the benefits of laughter with others.
Of course, generally people laugh in response to humour or being tickled, but could just learning to laugh for no reason at all yield the same health benefits as from natural laughter? According to Mora-Ripoll, we cannot distinguish between laughter that is induced by humour and laughter for its own sake. “The brain is not able to distinguish between these types,” claims Mora-Ripoll. “Therefore, it is assumed that similar benefits may be achieved with one or the other.”
Laughter Yoga
Physician Madan Kataria in Mumbai, India also believes that we can derive great physical, mental and social benefits from laughing for no reason. This idea motivated him to develop Laughter Yoga, which combines yogic breathing techniques with unconditional laughter. Rather than using humour to induce laughter, these sessions begin by using exercises that simulate the physical activity of laughter. As the session progresses, through the use of eye-contact and what he refers to as “child-like playfulness,” this artificial laughter transforms into genuine laughter. So while humour can stimulate laughter, as Kataria attempts to do with Laughter Yoga, perhaps by just laughing we can arouse humorous feelings.
Studies examining the effects of laughter yoga show that practicing exercises that simulate laughter can increase self-efficacy in employees, reduce depression in the elderly, and promote cardiovascular health.
Fry notes, the average kindergartener laughs 300 times a day while the average adult laughs only 17 times a day. Life gets serious as we get older and it’s easy to forget to laugh, but if we can take a moment and make ourselves laugh, we can contribute greatly to our mental and physical well-being.