Is Laughter the Best Medicine? Humor, Laughter, and Physical Health Author(s): Rod A. Martin Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science, Vol. 11, No. 6 (Dec., 2002), pp. 216-220 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of Association for Psychological Science Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20182816 Accessed: 11/03/2010 17:45 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=assocpsychsci. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Association for Psychological Science and Blackwell Publishing are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Current Directions in Psychological Science. http://www.jstor.org
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Is Laughter the Best Medicine? Humor, Laughter, and Physical HealthAuthor(s): Rod A. MartinSource: Current Directions in Psychological Science, Vol. 11, No. 6 (Dec., 2002), pp. 216-220Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of Association for Psychological ScienceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20182816Accessed: 11/03/2010 17:45
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.
Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained athttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=assocpsychsci.
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
Association for Psychological Science and Blackwell Publishing are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,preserve and extend access to Current Directions in Psychological Science.
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Is Laughter the Best Medicine? Humor,
Laughter, and Physical Health Rod A. Martin1
Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada
Abstract
This article examines re
search evidence for the popu lar idea that humor and
laughter have beneficial ef
fects on physical health. Poten
tial theoretical mechanisms for
such effects are discussed first.
Empirical evidence for benefi
cial effects of humor and
laughter on immunity, pain tolerance, blood pressure, lon
gevity, and illness symptoms is
then summarized. Overall, the
evidence for health benefits of humor and laughter is less con
clusive than commonly be
lieved. Future research in this area needs to be more theoreti
cally driven and methodologi
cally rigorous.
Keywords humor; laughter; health; im
munity; pain
Belief in beneficial effects of hu
mor and laughter on physical health has become increasingly
popular in recent years. The media
frequently report claims about sci
entific evidence for health benefits
of humor and laughter. Some prac titioners have even begun to advo
cate the use of "therapeutic hu
mor" in the treatment of illness and
maintenance of health, and clowns
and comedy carts have become fa
miliar sights in many hospitals. The idea that laughter is good for
one's health can be traced to bibli
cal times, and was revived periodi
cally by various physicians and
philosophers through the centuries.
In recent decades, interest in the
healing power of laughter was
given new impetus by the best-sell
ing account by Cousins (1979) of
his recovery from a progressive and
painful rheumatoid disease after
treating himself with daily bouts of
laughter, along with massive doses
of vitamin C.
THEORETICAL MECHANISMS
How might humor and laugh ter influence physical health?
There are at least four potential mechanisms, each involving a dif
ferent aspect of humor, and each
suggesting different implications for the application of humor to
well-being. First, laughter might
produce physiological changes in
various systems of the body, which
may have beneficial effects on
health. Various authors have sug
gested, for example, that vigorous
laughter exercises and relaxes mus
cles, improves respiration, stimulates
circulation, increases the production of pain-killing endorphins, decreases
the production of stress-related hor
mones, and enhances irnmunity. Ac
cording to this theoretical model,
hearty laughter is crucial in the hu
mor-health connection, whereas hu
morous perceptions and amusement
without laughter would not be ex
pected to confer any health benefits.
Second, humor and laughter
might affect health by inducing pos itive emotional states, which may in turn have beneficial effects on
health, such as increasing pain tol
erance, enhancing immunity, and
undoing the cardiovascular conse
quences of negative emotions (Fred rickson, 2000). Compared with the
first model, this model gives humor
and laughter a less unique role in
health enhancement, as they are only one means of increasing positive emotions, along with love, joy, op timism, and so forth. Furthermore,
according to this model, overt
laughter may not even be neces
sary for health benefits to occur, be cause humor and amusement may induce positive moods even with
out laughter. Third, humor might benefit
health indirectly by moderating the
adverse effects of stress on health.
A considerable body of research in
dicates that stressful life experi ences can have adverse effects on
various aspects of health, including
suppression of the immune system and increased risk of infectious dis ease and heart disease (O'Leary,
Published by Blackwell Publishing Inc.
CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 217
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Copyright ? 2002 American Psychological Society
220 VOLUME 11, NUMBER 6, DECEMBER 2002
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