LAUGHTER THERAPY FOR LONG LIFE
Richard Haude, Ph.D., professor emeritus of psychology, and his colleagues speculated that “it is possible that a jocular nature and an ongoing appreciation of humor may facilitate successful survival into older adulthood.” In other words, they figured a good punch line could add to your life line.
To test their hypothesis, Dr. Haude and his colleagues asked 33 older adults with a mean age of 72.3 to rate themselves and a deceased sibling (mean age at death was 64.6) on a scale that evaluates one’s sense of humor. The results showed that the surviving siblings had a better sense of humor than their dead relatives. Though he admits the data are limited, Dr. Haude says the study shows that “if you appreciate humor to a greater extent than somebody else, you’re likely to live a little longer.”
Now this is all well and good for a person who is a natural-born comedian, but what about the person who cannot make others laugh? Is there hope for the humor-impaired? Michelle Gayle Newman, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, thinks so. In a study she conducted, she found that two groups of people-one that tended to use humor to cope with stress and another group that didn’t-both benefited positively from using humor during exposure to a stressful film. In this study, all participants, even those who didn’t have a sense of humor, demonstrated fewer stress reactions to the film when they used humor coping than participants who did not use humor coping. As a result of her study, Dr. Newman now believes that “humor can be learned.”
So keep practicing those punch lines.
You may never make it to the open mike night at your local comedy club, but you could still be standing to hear the next generation of stand-up comedians.
*58/36/5*
