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The Bible tells us A merry heart doeth good like a medicine; but a broken spirit drieth the bones.
Of course this picture of our laughing grandson makes us want to believe that laughter is good for people.
Modern writers who have explored the idea include: Patch Adams Regina Barecca Rod Martin Mary Kay Morrison Paul McGhee Norman Cousins William Fry Vera Robinson Patty Wooten
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Rod Martin, and his colleagues in Canada have developed a questionnaire to measure two styles of humor. One of these is potentially beneficial. It is affiliative and self-enhancing humor.
After controlling for age, no meaningful relationships were found between sense of humor and either illness symptoms or objective health indicators, although the study did find a weak relationship between sense of humor and satisfaction with health (r = .12).
These results suggest that, although high humor individuals do not seem to have objectively better health, they are somewhat more subjectively satisfied with their health. Martin concluded that despite reports in the popular media and claims made by adherents of the humor and health movement, the research findings on health benefits of humor and laughter are not as strong, consistent, or unambiguous as is commonly believed.
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Paul McGhee, in his The Laughter Remedy: Health, Healing, and the Amuse System, takes these kinds of criticism into his book but nevertheless advises: Become more playful; surround yourself with humor you enjoy. Begin telling jokes and funny stories. And laugh at yourself.
Of course she got a laugh when she reported, I remember sewing it, honest-to-God I can still feel it, onto my finger.
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Clowns have a long history dating from the 15th and 16th centuries and the Italian commedia dellarte.
Shakespearean Harlequin Modern Scary Clown
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NORMAN COUSINS Did More Than Any Other Writer to Promote the Idea of Humor as a Healer
In 1979, Cousins, a skilled writer and editor of the Saturday Review of Literature, published his best-selling Anatomy of an Illness. He had developed a serious collagen disease that affected the connective tissue of his spine and joints. The disease was life-threatening, his pain was intense, and the doctors gave him little hope for a full recovery. He was frustrated by the hospital routines and his slow progress, so he checked himself out of the hospital and into a nearby hotel.
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Because of his celebrity status, the doctors continued to see him and to deliver his medication, while he used what he called humor-intervention therapy. He read humorous books, and watched funny movies, and tapes of TVs Candid Camera.
He found that the more he laughed, the longer his body was without pain. He persuasively made the case that if it is possible to have a psychosomatic illness, then it is also possible to have a psychosomatic wellness.
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In 1971, Dr. WILLIAM FRY Began Empirical Studies on the Effects of Humor and Laughter.
Dr. Fry, a member of the faculty at Stanford Universitys Medical School, was among the first to go beyond anecdotal stories about the benefits of humor. He conducted testing and measuring that could be replicated by others. He found that the chemicals, i.e. the hormones in a persons tears are different when a person is laughing as compared to sobbing. He also showed that peoples bodies are tense when listening to a joke, but relaxed at the end. He compared the bodys production of dopamine when laughing to a runners high, which is why he calls laughter Internal Jogging.
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I had written to Aunt Maud Who was on a trip abroad Then I heard shed died of cramp, Just too late to save the stamp.
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We Are Hopeful about the Wish-Fulfilling Belief that Humor Is Good for People, but We Also Want to Offer Some Warnings
We decided this when a neighbors mother died from cancer. After the funeral, she told us that she got her mother funny videos and told her jokes, but she died anyway. Here are some of the things we wished we had talked with our neighbor about before she put so much faith in laughter as a healer.
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People have individualized senses of humor, and what makes one person laugh might annoy or insult someone else.
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2. Even if it is true that people who have a good sense of humor live longer, the sense of humor might not be the reason. The relationship could be circular in that people who are healthy, also tend to be happy and cheerful. 3. Also, it could be simply that pleasant patients with a sense of humor receive better health care than do the grumpy and hostile patients. 4. If laughter enhances the immune system, then what about implant patients? A stronger immune system for them could cause them to reject their implants.
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5. Although a hearty laugh does pump adrenalin and other good chemicals into peoples blood streams, there are other things that have the same effect. In hospitals, visits from pets, from friends, and members of the clergy also have a positive effect on health and healing.
In conclusion, we will go along with the scholar who compared using humor to changing a babys diaper. It doesnt permanently solve any problems, but it makes things more acceptable for a while.
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HUMOR AND HEALTH (PAUL MCGHEE): http://www.holisticonline.com/Humor_Therapy/humor_mcghee_article.htm HUMOR QUEST (Mary Kay Morrison): http://www.questforhumor.com/
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Related PowerPoint
Clowns
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References (2000-2013): Buchowski, M. S., K. M. Majchrzak, K. Bloomquist, K. Y. Chen, D. W. Byrne, and J.-A Bachorowski. Energy Expenditure of Genuine Laughter. International Journal of Obesity 31.1 (2007): 131-137. Buttny, Richard. Therapeutic Humor in Retelling the Clients Tellings. Text 21.3 (2001): 303-326. Doosje, Sibe. Sense of Humor at Work: Assessment and Associations with Health. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation: Utrecht, Holland: University of Utrecht, 2010. Emrich, David M., Nancy Creaghead, Sandra Grether, Donna Murray and Carol Grasha. The Comprehension of Humorous Materials by Adolescents with High-Functioning Autism and Aspergers Syndrome. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 33.3 (2003): 253-257.
Gallagher, Helen L., Francesca Happ, Nicola Brunswick, Paul C. Fletcher, Uta Frith, and Christopher D. Frith. Reading the Mind in Cartoon and Stories: An fMRI Study of Theory of Mind in Verbal and Nonverbal Tasks. Neuropsychologia 38 (2000): 11-21.
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Kerkkanen, Paavo, Nicholas A. Kuiper, and Rod A. Martin. "Sense-ofHumor, Physical Health and Well-Being at Work: A Three-Year Longitudinal Study of Finnish Police Officers." HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research 17.1-2 (2004): 21-35.
Klein, Allen. Learning to Laugh When You Feel Like Crying: Embracing Life after Loss. New York, NY: Goodman Beck Publishing, 2011. Kuiper, Nicholas A., Melissa Grimsahaw, Catherine Leite, and Gillian Kirsh. Humor is Not Always the Best Medicine: Specific Components of Sense of Humor and Psychological Well-Being. HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research 17.1-2 (2004): 135-168. Kuiper, Nicholas A., and Sorrel Nicholl. Thoughts of Feeling Better? Sense of Humor and Physical Health. HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research 17.1-2 (2004): 37-66. Marinkovic, K., Baldwin, S., Courtney, M. G., Witzel, T., Dale, A. M., & Halgren, E. Right hemisphere has the last laugh: Neural Dynamics of Joke Appreciation. Cognitive, Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience, 11.1 (2011): 113-130.
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Marjoram, Dominic, Dominic E. Job, Heather C. Walley, Viktoria-Eleni Gountouna, Andrew M. McIntosh, Ernico Simonotto, David Cunningham-Owens, Eve C. Johnstone, and Stephen Lawrie. A Visual Joke fMRI Investigation into Theory of Mind and Enhanced Risk of Schizophrenia. NeuroImage 31.4 (2006): 1850-1858.
Martin, Rod A. Humor and Health in Raskin (2008) 479-522. Martin, Rod A. Humor, Laughter, and Physical Health:Methodological Issues and Research Findings. Psychological Bulletin 127 (2001): 504-519. Martin, Rod A. The Psychology of Humor: An Integrative Approach. London, England: Elsevier, 2007.
Martin, Rod A. "Sense of Humor and Physical Health: Theoretical Issues, Recent Findings, and Future Directions." HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research 17.1-2 (2004): 1-20.
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McGhee, Paul E. Humor: The Lighter Path to Resilience and Health. Blolomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2010. Mobbs, Dean, Michael D. Greicisu, Eiman Abdel-Azim, Vinod Menon, and Allan L. Reiss. Humor Modulates the Mesolimbic Reward Centers. Neuron 40 (2003): 1041-1048. Morreall, John. Applications of Humor: Health, The Workplace, and Education in Raskin [2008] 449-478. Morreall, John. Philosophy and Religion in Raskin [2008] 211-242. Nilsen, Alleen Pace, and Don L. F. Nilsen. Encyclopedia of 20th Century American Humor. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000.
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Rackl, Lorilyn. But Seriously Folks: Humor Can Keep You Healthy. Readers Digest, September, 2003, 62-71. Raskin, Victor, ed. Primer of Humor Research. New York, NY: Mouton de Gruyter, 2008. Salameh, Waleed A., and William F. Fry, Jr., eds. Humor and Wellness in Clinical Intervention. New York, NY: Praeger, 2001. Samson, Andrea C., Stefan Zysset, and Oswald Huber. Cognitive Humor Processing: Different Logical Mechanisms in Non-Verbal Cartoons: An fMRI Study. Social Neuroscience 2.3 (2008): 125-140. Sayre, Joan. The Use of Aberrant Medical Humor by Psychiatric Unit Staff. Issues in Mental Health Nursing 22.7 (2001): 669-689. Svebak, Sven, K. Gunnar Gtestam, and Eva Naper Jensen. "The Significance of Sense of Humor, Life Regard, and Stressors for Bodily Complaints among High School Students." HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research. 17.1-2 (2004): 67-84.
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Svebak, Sven, Rod A. Martin, and Jostein Holmen. The Prevalence of Sense of Humor in a Large, Unselected Country Population in Norway: Relations with Age, Sex, and Some Health Indicators. HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research 17.1-2 (2004): 121-134. Svebak, S., Romundstad, S., & Holmen, J. A 7-year prospective study of sense of humor and mortality in an adult county population: The HUNT-2 study. International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine, (2010) 40: 125-146. Watson, Karli K., Benjamkn J. Matthews, and John M. Allman. Brain Activation During Sight Gags and Language-Dependent Humor. Cerebral Cortex 17 (2006): 314-324. Wild, Barbara, Frank A. Rodden, Alexander Rapp, Michael Erb, Wolfgang Grodd, and Willibald Ruch. Humor and Smiling: Cortical Regions Selective for Cognitive, Affective and Volitional Components. Neurology 66.6 (2006): 887-893.
Wooten, Patty, and Shobi Dobi. The Hospital Clown. Salt Lake City, UT: Commune-A-Key, 2001.
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