Is laughter the best medicine?

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Is laughter the best medicine according to scientific research
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Is laughter the best medicine according to scientific research? Can laughter prevent and treat the most common diseases? Read this article to find out the answer to these questions.

Is laughter the best medicine?

According to existing scientific studies, laughter does indeed help cure some diseases. For example, laughter helps with stress [1] and cardiovascular disease [2].

There are also studies proving that stress can affect our health even 10 years later and it can be the cause of a number of chronic diseases [3].

Also, stress can negatively affect the nervous system, brain function, and immune system, which can lead to the formation of malignant tumors if the stress is strong enough [4].

On the one hand, there are not enough scientific studies yet to state that laughter cures absolutely all diseases.

On the other hand, given that stress can be the cause of many diseases, and laughter helps to get rid of stress, we can say that laughter can cure many diseases.

Also there are real stories of people who allegedly, thanks to laughter only, were treated for incurable diseases.

One of these stories is considered to be, for example, the story of Norman Cousins, who was hospitalized with a connective tissue disease and ankylosing spondylitis.

Norman did not really like the doctors’ forecasts and he developed his own treatment program. He started watching different comedy TV shows, movies and thus cured himself.
He said that 10 minutes of genuine laughter gave him 2 hours of pain-free sleep.

Norman lived much longer than doctors predicted for him. After being diagnosed with connective tissue disease, Norman lived for more than 25 years.

Click here if you want to learn more about Norman’s story and read his book “Anatomy of an illness”.

Summary

So, is laughter the best medicine according to scientific research? Scientific research shows that laughter really can be healthy for us and may prevent and even treat some diseases. We don’t know for sure yet if laughter can really treat all diseases though because of lack of research. But until we do I recommend you to stress less and laugh out loud as much as you can and as long as possible.

Just try to always focus on the positive no matter what the situation is, especially when the situation is not good.

Sometimes we can’t change the situation but we can always change our attitude about any situation.

Stay positive and healthy,
Serhii.

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