Hale and hearty, ha-ha

"A cheerful heart is good medicine . . . " - Proverbs 17:22 "Even the gods love jokes" - Plato "He who laughs, lasts" - Mary P. Poole "Laughter is the shortest distance between two people" - Victor Borge

A while back, listing the qualities I was looking for in a husband, I wrote "good sense of humour" near the top of the list.

I still have the list, tucked away among other important papers, and, bless him, my husband still goes out of his way every day to make me laugh. After 20 years of marriage, it remains one of his more endearing qualities.

What I didn't know until now is how healthy it is to laugh.

Oh, I heard someone from the HRM Laughter Club being interviewed on CBC radio not long ago. It sounded a little silly: getting a bunch of people together to practice laughing. I'm giggling on the other side of my face, now. It seems the idea for these clubs began in India, where laughers, guided by Dr. Madan Kataria, practiced a "mirth-inducing posture derived from yoga." Dr. Kataria set up the Priydarshini Park laughing club in 1995 and the idea has chuckled its way around the world.

The benefits claimed from laughing exercise are full of promise. Laughing for 15 minutes a day can drive carbon dioxide out of the body, to be replaced by oxygen-rich air, providing physical and mental freshness; produce anti-inflammatory agents which can aid back pain or arthritis, encourage muscles to relax, and exercises muscles all over the body, from the scalp to the legs; reduce levels of cortisol (the stress hormone may possibly aid immune system responses, although the evidence for that is primarily anecdotal), exercise facial muscles to prevent sagging, boost the production of “feel-good” endorphin hormones.

Claims like these have to be challenged!

Dr. Michael Miller, director of preventative cardiology at University of Maryland, knows the endothelium (lining of the arteries) has power over blood pressure, clotting, hardening of the arteries and inflammation. If laughter can improve the health of the endothelium, it can be a real factor in reducing cardiovascular disease. Dr. Miller and his team found watching a funny movie increased the healthy blood flow in 95 per cent of the people tested. The amount of improvement was very like what would result from aerobic exercise - not that Dr. Miller would ever recommend leaving that important piece out of the puzzle! "We do recommend that you try to laugh on a regular basis. Thirty minutes of exercise three times a week, and 15 minutes of laughter on a daily basis is probably good for the vascular system," he says.

At the University of Western Ontario, Dr. Rod Martin teaches a course in the psychology of humour. Martin believes "humour and laughter can be used in thoughtless and cruel ways to put others down, or in positive, caring ways to playfully express solidarity with others."

See? I always knew it meant you loved me, honey!

Weblinks: www.laughteryoga.org www.globalideasbank.org/site/bank/idea.php?ideaId=2254 www.globalideasbank.org/site/bank/idea.php?ideaId=2254> www.umm.edu/news/releases/laughter2.htm www.umm.edu/news/releases/laughter2.htm>

http://instruct.uwo.ca/psychology/368g/#11