Laughter Is The Best Medicine
By Hannah Isom
It has long been the common opinion that a good old belly laugh makes you feel better. Well now it has been scientifically proven that laughter really is the best medicine.
Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NNTU) and St Olav’s Hospital, also in Norway, have proven for the very first time that there is a link between a good sense of humour and reduced mortality. The report, published in the International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine, reveals how being up for a giggle significantly increases the chance of survival when patients are hit with life-threatening disease.
The dry-witted scientists behind the investigation looked at kidney patients, all of whom were very ill and receiving dialysis (which is no barrel of laughs in itself).
They then quizzed these patients on all aspects of their life, including education, gender, quality of life and sense of humour. It is not clear how the patients’ sense of humour was assessed, but a kind of impromptu open mike comedy night is one possibility. To their amazement, for patients that scored relatively high on the sense of humour scale, the risk of dying within two years fell by 30 percent!
The correlation was so marked, that there was no patient characteristic that predicted 2-year survival better. Thus, conclusive proof that you really should “smile when your heart (or kidney) is aching”.
Find out more about Hannah and read more of her articles here.
Image: Audrey Johnson
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