{"id":631,"date":"2012-10-15T01:48:58","date_gmt":"2012-10-15T06:48:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mentalhealth-online.com\/mentalhealth\/?p=631"},"modified":"2012-10-15T01:55:04","modified_gmt":"2012-10-15T06:55:04","slug":"laughter-as-medicine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mentalhealth-online.com\/mentalhealth\/laughter-as-medicine\/","title":{"rendered":"Laughter as Powerful Medicine for Healing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dr. Lee Berk, a preventive care specialist and psychoneuroimmunologist, of Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, CA, paired with Stanley Tan, MD, PhD an endocrinologist and diabetes specialist at Oak Crest Health Research Institute, Loma Linda, CA.\u00c2\u00a0 These doctors and their colleagues examined the effect of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mirthful <em>laughter<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d on individuals with diabetes. <a href=\"https:\/\/mentalhealth-online.com\/mentalhealth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/laughter.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-632\" title=\"Laughter -- Powerful Medicine for Healing!\" src=\"https:\/\/mentalhealth-online.com\/mentalhealth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/laughter-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Laughter -- Powerful Medicine for Healing!\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Diabetes is a metabolic illness characterized by the risk of blindness, heart attack, and other blood vessel, neurological, immune-system complications. These researchers used <a title=\"The Life Coach Dr. for Healing Support to Change YOUR Life!\" href=\"http:\/\/thelifecoachdr.com\/coach\/change-your-life\/\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">mirthful laughter<\/a>, as a preventive adjunct therapy in diabetes care.\u00c2\u00a0 They found that mirthful laughter raised good cholesterol and lowered inflammation.<\/p>\n<p>The Study<\/p>\n<p>Twenty high-risk diabetic patients with hypertension and hyperlipidemia were divided into two groups &#8212; Group C was the control group; while Group L was the laughter group.\u00c2\u00a0 Both groups were started on standard medications for diabetes, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia. Groups were followed for 12 months.\u00c2\u00a0 Both Groups received standard therapies.\u00c2\u00a0 In addition, Group L viewed self-selected humor for 30<!--more--> minutes.<\/p>\n<p>Results<\/p>\n<p>The patients in the laughter group (Group L) had lower epinephrine and norepinephrine levels by the second month, suggesting lower stress levels. They had increased HDL (good) cholesterol. The laughter group also had lower levels of inflammation.\u00c2\u00a0 At the end of one year, the research team saw significant improvement in Group L:\u00c2\u00a0 HDL cholesterol had risen by 26 percent in Group L (laughter), and only 3 percent in the Group C (control). Harmful C-reactive proteins decreased 66 % in the laughter group vs. 26 percent for the control group.<\/p>\n<p>Conclusion<\/p>\n<p>The study suggests that the addition of an adjunct therapeutic\u00c2\u00a0 mirthful laughter Rx (a potential modulator of <a title=\"The Life Coach Dr. to Enhance Quality of Life!\" href=\"http:\/\/thelifecoachdr.com\/coach\/enhance-life-quality\/\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">positive mood state<\/a>) to standard diabetes care may lower inflammatory response and stress and increase \u00e2\u20ac\u0153good\u00e2\u20ac\u009d cholesterol levels.\u00c2\u00a0 The authors conclude that mirthful laughter may thus lower the risk of cardiovascular disease associated with diabetes mellitus and metabolic syndrome.<\/p>\n<p>So, once again, Drs. Berk and Tan have given us the PERFECT reason to laugh &#8212; your Good Health depends on it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr. Lee Berk, a preventive care specialist and psychoneuroimmunologist, of Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, CA, paired with Stanley Tan, MD, PhD an endocrinologist and diabetes specialist at Oak Crest Health Research Institute, Loma Linda, CA.\u00c2\u00a0 These doctors and their colleagues examined the effect of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mirthful laughter\u00e2\u20ac\u009d on individuals with diabetes. Diabetes is a metabolic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,11,4,3,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-emotional-healing","category-life-coaching","category-mental-healing","category-physical-healing","category-spiritual-healing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mentalhealth-online.com\/mentalhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mentalhealth-online.com\/mentalhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mentalhealth-online.com\/mentalhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mentalhealth-online.com\/mentalhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mentalhealth-online.com\/mentalhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=631"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mentalhealth-online.com\/mentalhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":636,"href":"https:\/\/mentalhealth-online.com\/mentalhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631\/revisions\/636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mentalhealth-online.com\/mentalhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mentalhealth-online.com\/mentalhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mentalhealth-online.com\/mentalhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}