Laughter Therapy
Simple put, laughter raises one's frequency to help with the healing process. People who are 'up' positive personalities and laugh a lot generally have less physical problems than those who are depressed - wounded souls - who dwell in their issues and find it hard to laugh at life.
Effects of Laughter:
- boosts the interferon levels: Laughter therapy boosts the interferon levels of the immune system which helps the system's ability to fight illness and escalates healing. Laughter decreases stress hormones that constrict blood vessels and suppress immune activity.
- Muscle Relaxation - Belly laugh results in muscle relaxation. While you laugh, the muscles that do not participate in the belly laugh, relaxes. After you finish laughing those muscles involved in the laughter start to relax. So, the action takes place in two stages.
- Reduction of Stress Hormones - Laughter reduces at least four of neuroendocrine hormones associated with stress response. These are epinephrine, cortisol, dopac, and growth hormone.
- Immune System Enhancement - Clinical studies have shown that humor strengthens the immune system.
- Pain Reduction - Humor allows a person to "forget" about pains such as aches, arthritis, etc.
- Cardiac Exercise - A belly laugh is equivalent to "an internal jogging." Laughter can provide good cardiac conditioning especially for those who are unable to perform physical exercises.
- Blood Pressure - Women seem to benefit more than men in preventing hypertension.
- Respiration - Frequent belly laughter empties your lungs of more air than it takes in resulting in a cleansing effect - similar to deep breathing. Especially beneficial for patient's who are suffering from emphysema and other respiratory ailments.
In modern times, the tendency is toward acceptance of incongruity as the probable cause of laughter, and incongruity-based theories are slowly gaining ground, although other schools of thought still hold some favour. A common explanation of humour (in the broader sense of 'laughter-provoking') is based on language. Premises: as we interpret a text, we automatically consider what language says, supposes, doesn't say, and implies (this is the perspective of hermeneutics); the sentences we listen to and we tell, follow the universal conversational rules, that can be reduced to only one: be relevant.