Laughter and Chronic Illness

"Always laugh when you can, it is cheap medicine." - George Gordon Byron We've all heard something similar to this quote, but is it true? Is laughter cheap medicine? How does it affect our bodies and can it enhance overall health? Can it improve chronic illnesses? These are a few questions that we are going to try to answer. Our expectation is that laughter, as a part of an overall positive demeanor, is beneficial to the health and well being of a person. Qualitative data would seem to suggest that a patient with a positive outlook (to include lots of laughing) would feel better, but are they truly better? Does their positivity and laughter act merely as a sort of placebo effect, their brains tricking them into believing that their circumstances are better than the reality? Or, are there actual physical manifestations of the healing process? We hypothesize that laughter could act as a medicine simply because people feel happier. A person's morale improves when they laugh, which in turn could improve their health. Laughter could also have an observable physiological effect on chronic illness and immunity. If it does, how much laughter does it take to see an effect and for how long does it last? Does it matter what type of laughter occurs? It could also matter if the laughter is Bergsonian, or Carnivalesque. Could we force laughter and get the same results as natural laughter if indeed it did help with chronic illness and immunity? We also hypothesize that the type of laughter experienced by people does not influence the benefits they receive from it. But, could a comic experienced by one patient not be comedic to another? If so, how would that affect their health? In regards to overall health and well being, we believe that laughter could increase the lifespan of some and stave off hereditary disease in others. If we can show that laughter has a positive, measurable effect on the body, then health care professionals will be able to think of ways to adapt treatments and supplement preventative medicine. Also, patients could help themselves by laughing more, by spending more time watching and experiencing comedic media, which could lead to higher immunity and lessened chronic illness. If these hypotheses are correct then should comedic entertainment be more of a staple in medicine than what it is today? What do you think? Leave your comments below.