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LAUGHTER IS GOOD MEDICINE, BUT NOT ALL LAUGHTER!
For as long as I can remember Reader's Digest
has included a section called LAUGHTER, THE BEST MEDICINE. In the most
recent issue the following was the lead story:
Every Day a woman stood on her porch and shouted, "Praise the Lord!"
And every day the atheist next door yelled back, "There is no Lord!"
One day she prayed, "Lord, I'm hungry. Please send me groceries."
The next morning she found a big bag of food on the stairs. "Praise
the Lord," she shouted.
"I told you there was no Lord," her neighbor said, jumping from behind
the bush. "I bought those groceries."
"Praise the Lord," the woman said. "He not only sent me
groceries, but he made the devil pay for them."1
Or consider these one-liners taken from April's
magazine.
Why is a hospital gown like health insurance? You're never as covered
as you think you are.
Did you hear about the two podiatrists who opened their offices on the same street? They
were arch enemies.
What do you get when you cross a snake with a rabbit and an amoeba? An
adder that can multiply and divide.2
This monthly magazine has been around so long
and has been read by so many people that the phrase, LAUGHTER, THE BEST MEDICINE
has become proverbial. But is it really true? And what does the Bible
say about laughter?
Well, the Bible doesn't go so far as to say that
laugher is the best medicine. The closest it comes to agreeing with Reader's
Digest is found in Proverbs 17:22. We read:
A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person's strength.
(NLT)
OR
A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. (NIV)
OR
A cheerful disposition is good for your health; gloom and doom leave you bone-tired.
(The Message)
To place these verses in context, we need to go
back to Proverbs 15 and take a close look at vv. 13 - 17. We read:
A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache
crushes the spirit. 14 The discerning heart seeks knowledge, but the mouth
of a fool feeds on folly. 15 All the days of the oppressed are wretched,
but the cheerful heart has a continual feast. 16 Better a little with the
fear of the LORD than great wealth with turmoil. 17 Better a meal of vegetables
where there is love than a fattened calf with hatred.
By the time Solomon penned these words he had
learned the hard truth that love and laughter are more valuable than wealth and
turmoil. It's better to enjoy a simple meal with someone who really loves
you and has a happy heart than it is to have a seven-course dinner with those
who are using you and who, given the chance, may stab you in the back.
But in regards to laughter we need to extract
two truths from this passage. First, a happy heart, a cheerful disposition
shows up on a person's face. In other words, the disposition of our spirit
is intimately connected to our body. Someone, I don't know who, has put
it this way: "After the age of 40 you are responsible for your own
face."
I can't tell you what they were thinking since
I don't even know the context of this observation. But it seems to me that
by the time someone is forty years old they should have figured out that it is
far better to have a "little with the fear of the Lord than to have great
wealth with turmoil." After all, a little with the fear of the Lord
will result in a happy heart which in turn will show up on their face; a face
that has begun to show the hardships of life.
Second, a happy heart is contagious. Why
else would it be better to have a simple meal served by someone who really loves
you than to feast with those who at best tolerate you? Sharing a meal with
those who have a cheerful heart means you won't have heartburn, figuratively
not literally. You'll walk away from the table reasonably satisfied and
happy - both conditions are good for your heart.
Now let's go back to Proverbs 17:22. We've
seen from the verses in Proverbs 15 that the spirit and body are intimately connected. The
former impacts the latter; whether we are up or down it shows up on our face. Okay,
but is laughter really good medicine? Solomon tells us that it is and all
the anecdotal evidence, and all the research, indicates that the more we laugh
the more days we will have to laugh.
In regards to testimonial evidence it is instructive
to look at the experience of Norman Cousins. In 1964 he was afflicted with
a crippling disease that the doctors believed to be irreversible. It progressed
so quickly that within a week it became difficult for him to move his neck, arms,
hands, fingers, and legs. During that same week he became convinced that
a hospital is no place for a person who is seriously ill. At that point,
his chances of surviving were 1 in 500. Not good!
As he thought back on how he became ill and what
he could personally do about it he concluded, with the help of a doctor who really
listened to him, that he had to get out of the hospital and take a different
approach. In part, the approach he landed on included a healthy dose of
laughter. In his book Anatomy of an Illness we read:
Even before we had completed arrangements for
moving out of the hospital we began the part of the program calling for the full
exercise of the affirmative emotions as a factor in enhancing body chemistry. It
was easy enough to hope and love and have faith, but what about laughter? Nothing
is less funny than being flat on your back with all the bones in your spine and
joints hurting. A systematic program was indicated. A good place
to begin, I thought, was with amusing movies. Allen Funt, producer of the
spoofing television program "Candid Camera," sent films of some of
his CC classics, along with a motion-picture projector. The nurse was instructed
in its use. We were even able to get our hands on some old Marx Brothers
films. We pulled down the blinds and turned on the machine.
It worked. I made the joyous discovery that
ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give
me at least two hour of pain-free sleep. When the pain-killing effect of
the laughter wore off, we would switch on the motion-picture projector again,
and, not infrequently, it would lead to another pain-free sleep interval. Sometimes,
the nurse read to me out of a trove of humor books. Especially useful
were E. B. and Katharine White's Subtreasury of American Humor and Max Eastman's
The Enjoyment of Laughter.
How scientific was it to believe that laughter
- as well as positive emotions in general - was affecting my body chemistry
for the better? If laughter did in fact have a salutary effect on the body's
chemistry, it seemed at least theoretically likely that it would enhance the
system's ability to fight the inflammation. So we took sedimentation rate
readings just before as well as several hours after the laughter episodes. Each
time, there was a drop of at least five points. The drop by itself was
not substantial, but it held and was cumulative. I was greatly elated
by the discovery that there is a physiologic basis for the ancient theory that
laughter is good medicine.
There was, however, one negative side-effect on
the laughter from the standpoint of the hospital. I was disturbing other
patients. But that objection didn't last very long, for the arrangements
were now complete for me to move my act to a hotel room.3
Wow! Admittedly there was more to his recovery
than laughter. Also, this is simply the story of one man and his bout with
the medical community. Nevertheless, Norman Cousins' testimony underlines
the truth of Proverbs 17:22. He called it a "theory," you and
I call it one of the sure-principles of Scripture.
In addition to testimonial evidence, research
has shown again and again that laughter is good medicine. In an article
entitled Let's Play Richard Tait writes:
In the animal world and in ours, play isn't only
for children. Play brings us together, allows us to put the rest of the
world on pause and encourages us to laugh. (Research shows that a kindergartner
laughs 300 times a day; an adult only 17.) It (play) teaches us trust,
cooperation, respect for others, sharing, mastery and many of life's other lessons. Play
is a fundamental need, just like air, water and the five food groups. Yet
our current lifestyle makes play a luxury few of us can afford.4
Richard Tait, however, is just one voice among
many that encourages us to laugh. Melissa Veselovsky, the executive coordinator
of Healing Through the Body of Christ, in an interview with Lawn Griffiths for
the TRIBUNE newspaper maintains that laugher:
-
lowers blood pressure.
-
decreases stress hormones.
-
increases infection-fighting antibodies.
&
-
improves brain function.
Liz Curtis Higgs agrees. On her tape One
Laugh to Live she maintains that when we laugh:
-
our heart rate goes up and then drops just below
the
starting level.
-
our blood pressure goes up and then drops just
below
the starting level.
-
our threshold of pain increases.
-
it massages our organs (internal jogging).
-
it oxygenates our blood.
-
it improves our circulation.
-
it stimulates our immune system.
&
-
it helps us handle stress.5
So does this mean that all laughter is healthy! No! For
the Bible makes it clear that some forms of humor are improper for God's people. In
Ephesians 5:3 - 4 we read:
Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or
greed among you. Such sins have no place among God's people. 4 Obscene
stories, foolish talk, and coarse jokes-these are not for you. Instead, let there
be thankfulness to God.
When Paul condemned sexual immorality, impurity,
and greed he also pointed out that there is a standard of appropriateness for
laughter. As Christians we are not to make light of sexual immorality. Fornication
and adultery are not laughing matters. He also said that foolish talk,
literally moronic words, and coarse jokes are out of place. For to laugh
about these things mocks virtue. Or it demeans and hurts those who are
created in the image of God. Instead we are to be thankful in and for
all things.
But I believe there are two other reasons for
curbing our humor. When our laughter is inappropriate we grieve the Holy
Spirit. Additionally, we wound our conscience which makes it easier to
laugh at the next course joke. This isn't healthy!
1 Reader's
Digest, September 2006, p. 142.
2 Reader's Digest, April 2006, pp. 132 - 133.
3 Norman Cousins, Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by
the Patient, Bantam Books,/published by arrangements with W. W. Norton & Co.
Inc., 1981, pp. 39 - 40. [The 1st edition came out in 1979]
4 Richard Tait, PARADE, Let's Play, July 30,
2006, pp. 6 - 7.
5 Josh Billings has said that there "isn't much fun
in medicine but there is a whole lot of medicine in fun." And while
humor won't cure anything it does improve our resources for dealing with illness.
THE JOY OF LAUGHTER 8/20/06
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