Do we need Humor Rooms?

Studies and researchers have discovered that laughter affects the body in many good ways and we don't even realize it. Have you ever thought that your blood pressure can be lowered, laughter reduces stress, and laughter even helps your immune system? Why do more people not use this very pleasant pain free "drug"? I think this will be my drug of choice from now on. We just need to get more people turned on to it. Would you agree? This loss of humor may have been from depression or other psychological disorders. The science of laughter is such an important part of our lives that researchers have spent a lot of time studying the effects of laughter.

Laughter has been effective in the recovery of illness. Hospitals have even created rooms for humor and put in cable TV with comedy channels. The medical researchers found that laughter lowers blood pressure, reduces stress hormones, and gives a boost to the immune system and many other functions of our body. Laughter also releases our body's natural painkillers and gives us an overall sense of well being. Research shows that laughing fifteen minutes each day could prolong your life. This comes from stimulating the blood flow and helping your heart.

Laughter as one scientist said, has similar health benefits as aerobic exercise but comes without the aches and pains you get from exercise. Research has shown laughter with numerous positive outcomes. There are no known negative side effects to laughter. Would it not be great to be able to go visit a friend or loved one that is sick in the hospital and see that instead of being hooked up to all kinds of medicine they are brought a rolling video cart to chose what they want to watch to help them fight pain, help improve their immune system, blood flow, etc.?

It has been proven medically, and I’m sure you’ve observed it more than once in your family members: when we watch something on TV, the more interested we are, and the more engrossed we become with the events on the TV, the less we hear, see and feel the reality around us. This same concept works with laughter, also. The more absorbed we become in the humor and laughter of the moment, the less apt we are to concentrate on our own misery: be it pain, discomfort, cancer, or any other list of existing ailments. How does this work?

Researchers say that laughter helps fight pain. The brain has been researched for years. Scientists want to know how emotions affect the brain then perhaps they can know how to treat emotional disorders and pain. Researchers want to know the precise roles that the different brain areas play and how their functions may even overlap.

Most likely there will be improvements in how to treat patients in the future. I know if we could treat children this way and if watching a video in a humor room would help make them more comfortable, and be able to handle pain better, we would see more of humor rooms in hospitals. No one wants to see a child in pain. Although we are all aware of the fact that more research is needed to enhance the scientific “proof” factor, no one can dispute the overall positive side effects that laughter and humor can have on the outlook of children, especially the terminally ill.

The hypothesis has been formed, that maybe with an increase in humor and laughter in their lives, the prognosis could be better. Maybe lives would be longer, simply because we give them something to look forward too.

Many children’s hospitals are today including “humor rooms” as a standard in the hospital lounge and waiting areas, simply for the positive side affects that laughter and happiness can have on the family of patients, as well as the patients themselves. We quite often forget the sound of the barely suppressed giggle, the laughter that reaches a child’s eyes when true excitement and humor enter the picture; we need to make every effort to keep that smile and laughter present, even if we need to incorporate the use of “humor rooms”.