Laugh your way to a healthy life
Stress for Success
March 6, 2007

There are certain skills that are the best at reducing stress, such as problem solving, deep relaxation, exercise, etc. Included in this list is looking at life with a sense of humor. It’s one of the best coping skills.

When both of my parents were ill at the end of their lives we relied on humor to soften the blow of the incredible stress of having both of them failing at the same time.

One of many examples I still fondly remember was my father in ICU for the first time. He couldn’t talk because he was on a ventilator but was trying so hard to communicate something to my mother and me. With no teeth in his mouth and a tube down his throat we had absolutely no idea what he was trying to say. The communication aides the nurses gave us didn’t work. For 30 minutes we guessed at what he was trying to say. After each guess he’d shake his head in frustration. Finally, my mother said to my father, “Are you asking why you can’t talk?” With great relief he nodded elatedly. We all burst out laughing uncontrollably. We climbed this mountain together and our reward, as it was all our lives, was a good laugh.

Life can be such a challenge and humor can help you deal better with almost any situation. It helps reduce stress because:

• Physically and mentally laughter’s the opposite of stress. It lowers blood pressure, increases blood circulation, reduces muscle tension and pain, and boosts your immune system.
• Humor facilitates mental flexibility and increases creativity by blocking negative emotions allowing you to think through problems instead of emotionally muddling through them.
• Laughing at yourself increases your objectivity about yourself, decreasing your defensiveness.
• Team building is facilitated by shared humor. (Not the divisive type like sarcasm or humor aimed at belittling anyone or any group will, of course.)
• “The shortest distance between two people is humor”, said the famed comedic pianist, Victor Borge. Humor improves most communication, especially when it’s potentially confrontational.
• It’s just fun.

Researchers are studying whether or not humor is good for your health. Michael Miller, University of Maryland School of Medicine, is one. Knowing that blood vessels constrict when you’re stressed making you more vulnerable to circulation problems, he wondered if laughter could loosen them. His study showed that blood flow decreased about 35% after experiencing stress but increased 22% after laughter, an improvement equal to about a 15-minute workout. Wouldn’t you love your physician to prescribe 15 minutes of laughter every day?

Other research has shown that stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline cause circulation changes. It stands to reason that laughter may cause the release of pleasure producing endorphins that may counteract stress hormones and increase blood flow.

Lee Berk, associate professor of health promotion and education who studies laugher at Loma Linda University in CA said, “Laughter is not dissimilar to exercise. It’s not going to cure stage three cancer but in terms of prevention it does make sense.”

Whether or not laughter and humor prove to reduce stress to the point of having a positive health effect, it just makes sense to put more humor into your life because it makes life more enjoyable. There’s so much stuff out there that’s funny … if you’d just look for it.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Professional Coach in Lee County. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com or call 239-693-8111 for information about her workshops on this and other topics or to invite her to speak to your organization.