Comedy Cure: Learn to reduce pain though laughter and humor.
We can outline three possible ways in which laughter and humor can help reduce the perception of pain.
1. Shifts our attention. Our perception of our pain increases the more we pay attention to it. Humor can be used to distract our attention away from our pain.
2. Reduces muscle tension. When we feel pain our natural reaction is to tense muscles around the painful region of our body, worsening the feeling of pain. In addition, we can sometimes find ourselves in pain due to tension itself, such as when we have tension headaches. Laughter can cause the loss of tension in the skeletal muscles and thereby reduces and sometimes relieves pain when tension exists.
3. May help create endorphins. According to The Laughter Presciption by Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Bill Dana, studies show that laughter may help produce the bodies natural pain killers known as endorphons:“Mirth and laughter stimulate the brain to produce catecholamine…which prepares us to respond physically for either fight or flight. The arousal hormone in turn stimulates release of endorphins–our natural painkillers. As the level of endorphins in the brain increases, the perception of pain decreases. Laughter, then, causes our bodies to produce our own painkillers. It has also been evidenced that the increased level of catecholamines in the blood can reduce inflammation.”
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