Laughter - Medicine With Great Side Effects

By Heather Wandell



Have you ever noticed how great your body feels after a good belly laugh? Dr. Madan Kataria has. Kataria, founder and president of Laughter Club International, is a physician in Bombay, India, who is looking deeply into the healing effects of laughter. He has come to the realization that adults don't laugh nearly enough, primarily due to the tendency of sober adults wanting to create other sober adults, as in: "Be serious - you're an adult now." Children laugh an average of 400 times per day, adults only 15 times per day.

Kataria wanted to find a way for adults to add more laughter to their lives. The idea of starting a laughter club came to him when he was writing an article on laughter for a health magazine. In March 1995, Kataria got a group of people together in a public park in Mumbai (Bombay) just to laugh. They started meeting daily to tell a few jokes and laugh together before their morning walks. Group members found, however, that by the end of the week, the jokes were getting stale and some were inappropriate. Kataria knew he needed to find a way for people to laugh without jokes or even without a reason. He developed laughter exercises, a form of Hasya Yoga, and popularized it. Eventually, laughter clubs began to form all over India.

Around the same time, a gentleman in the United States was looking at the important role a positive attitude plays on our physical and emotional well-being. Steve Wilson, a psychologist and psychotherapist and founder of Ohio Professional Counseling Services, had written several books and articles on topics ranging from humor to healing, raising self-esteem and positive working environments. In 1998, Wilson, while traveling to India on a speaking engagement, attended one of Kataria's laughter club sessions. When the two men met, they felt an instant rapport based on a mutual sense of urgency to take the healing power of laughter worldwide.

Wilson returned to the United States so inspired to get laughter clubs started in this country that he and colleague Karyn Buxman quickly put together a 14-city lecture tour. The kickoff was in Columbus, Ohio. This was the beginning of The World Laughter Tour, an organization formed by Wilson, but with roots extending to ancient practices, biblical prescriptions and yogic methods, as well as to modern science.

The healing effects of laughter are numerous. It has been proven by psychoneuroimmunologists that negative emotions, such as anxiety, depression and anger, weaken the immune system of the body, thereby reducing its capacity to fight infections. Laughter helps to increase the count of natural killer lymphocytes in the bloodstream and also to raise antibody levels. People who participate in laughter clubs have noticed reduced frequency of colds, sore throats and chest infections. Laughter helps to control blood pressure by reducing the release of stress-related hormones and bringing relaxation. In experiments, it has been proven that there is a drop of 10-20 mm of blood pressure after participating for 10 minutes in a laughter session.

Norman Cousins, author of The Anatomy of An Illness As Perceived By the Patient (Bantam Books, 1979), tells the story of how laughter helped him recover almost completely from ankylosing spondylitis, a chronic autoimmune disease. A form of arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis causes inflammation of the spine, pelvis and many joints. Cousins' doctors predicted a gloomy future. Dissatisfied with the care he was receiving in the hospital, he checked himself into a hotel suite (which cost significantly less than a hospital room) and had a film projector set up. He spent much of his day laughing over Marx Brothers movies and old Candid Camera episodes. He found that after 15 minutes of laughter, he could sleep pain free for three hours. His pain subsided within eight days.

Businesses are also finding that adding laughter to their day helps to alleviate job dissatisfaction, stress and absenteeism. People who laugh together, work better together.

Howard County Recreation and Parks (410-313-7275) offers a Laughter workshop done in two one-hour sessions. The next one is on Jan. 21 and 28. Participants in the workshop learn the benefits of laughter on the body and participate in laughter exercises.

The World Laughter Tour's mission is to lead the world to health, happiness and peace through laughter. Trained laughter leaders help to make it happen. Joel Goodman, humor educator and author of Chicken Soup for the Laughing Soul, says, "Seven days without laughter makes one weak."



Heather Wandell is assistant marketing director for Winter Growth's Adult Day Programs in Howard County. She is also a certified laughter leader with The World Laughter Tour (www.worldlaughtertour.com). She can be reached at 410-461-5309 or by e-mail at hawandell@comcast.net.