Patient: “Doctor, doctor! My son just swallowed a roll of film!”

Doctor: “Don't worry. He’ll be fine. Let’s just wait and see what develops.”

How does laughing improve my health?

In the 1970s, a journalist named Norman Cousins published an article about how laughing helped him heal during a serious medical illness.¹ Since then, researchers have looked into how laughter might make us healthier, and they have found that laughter helps the body in many ways. It turns out that laughter:²

• Makes our heart pump blood to the rest of our body more efficiently
• Relaxes our muscles, which can decrease pain
• Increases memory, creativity, and problem solving³
• Increases the levels of human growth hormone, which helps us grow and has other helpful actions in the body
• Lowers cortisol, the hormone our bodies make during stress
• Helps our immunity by increasing the number of cells that fight infections⁴
• Increases oxygen levels in our body by relaxing our airways and helping our breathing

All of these changes may help our body fight an illness better. Laughter also improves our happiness, which helps us cope with long-term health issues. This is done in the following three ways:³

1. Laughter increases the “feel-good” chemicals (endorphins) in our body.
2. Laughing helps increase our self-esteem and helps us feel more hopeful and optimistic.
3. Laughter makes us friendlier and improves how we interact with others. This may affect our relationships with coworkers, family, friends, or even our health care team.

“I once heard a joke about amnesia, but I forgot how it goes.”

These general body changes sound good, but does laughter help me deal with specific diseases?

Yes! Research studies have shown that if patients laugh more often, they can live better with serious, long-term diseases. Here are some examples:⁵

• Heart disease. People may have fewer abnormal heart beats and heart attacks.
• Type 2 Diabetes. Diabetics may have fewer heart attacks, less kidney injury, and better control of blood sugars after eating.
• Chronic pain. People may have better pain tolerance.
• Lung diseases like asthma and COPD. People with these problems may be able to breathe better.