Is Laughter a Real Rheumatoid Arthritis Medicine?
New significance to RA, medicine, and laughter
If you’ve been on the blog more than five minutes, you know I love to laugh. When I was a kid, I remember Dick Van Dyke singing that with Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins. When they laughed, a funny thing happened: they floated “higher than air.”
Maybe you’ve heard it said: Laughter is good medicine. Did you know that actually comes from the Bible? I can hardly believe the second part! “A joyful heart is good medicine, But a broken spirit dries up the bones,” Proverbs 17:22. Gives new meaning to “funny bone.”
“Lol” found to be Rheumatoid Arthritis medicine
Last week, I was doing this pain in the neck pain threshold research. I saw this “mirthful laughter” study. I think “mirthful” means you have to “lol” / laugh out loud. Apparently laughing really hard is even better for you – just like Dick and Julie said!
Inflammatory cytokines were measured in the blood of RA’ers before and after watching Rakugo. Rakugo is a type of Japanese standup comedy in which the person sits. But is still funny. As long as you speak Japanese.
Anyway, there was a measurable effect to the laughter on the cytokines of the RA patients tested. It is interesting that they divided the patients into two groups: those with easier to control RA and those they called the “difficult-to-control” (recalcitrant Rheumatoid Arthritis). The way in which laughter affected RA patients’ inflammatory chemistry was dependent upon their RA disease activity. “The difficult-to-control RA group is under more stress than the easily controlled RA group and mirthful laughter can be used as a means to improve mental condition.”
It was not all good though. Seems those with tough to control RA have it tough all the way around. Certain pro-inflammatory cytokines were increased with mirthful laughter. Still, I feel like my four year old watching Blue’s Clues shouting “A clue. A clue. I found a clue.” Why would this tough-type RA respond differently to laughter? Would that help us know why recalcitrant RA responds differently to treatment?
Bonus: We spent about an hour watching Rakugo videos looking for a funny one to post here. All of the ones in English were painfully unfunny. So, we spent about 3 hours watching animal videos until we found one that made us laugh out loud. See the elephant jumping on a trampoline video below.
Helpful links:
- You can view the Mary Poppins “I love to laugh,” on YouTube here.
- To view the RA / mirthful laughter study here, click “download” and the pdf file will open.
- See every laughter post on RA Warrior here.
Recommended reading:
- Laughter as a Treatment for Rheumatoid Arthritis
- Dear Bridget Duffy from a Rheumatoid Arthritis Patient
- E-patients’ role in Healthcare Social Media: Do Doctors Hate Blogs?
- 20 Things Not to Say to a Rheumatoid Arthritis Patient
Elephant Jumping on Trampoline
You know I ♥ elephants!
Thanks for the giggles. I don’t know if anyone else watches the Bonnie Hunt Show but at the end of her show, she always posts videos similar to this-just to lighten people’s days. It’s kinda of a low key talk show which I find very relaxing and helps to alleviate stress. Don’t know what it’s doing for my cytokines though! Hopefully something positive! LOL But everyone needs laughter.
Julie, I love to watch the little girl talking about the Snotty Dr. on the Bulletin bd page – I never get tired of the laugh from watching that. :chic:
thank you ! ,,,,thats the best medicine i’ve found yet,, gave me a good belly laugh
My husband and I watched the Disney Pixar movie “UP” and got a wealth of good belly laughs. Watching animated movies is not something we’ve done since being emptynesters, but now I plan to do it more often. Laughing helps my mood which gives me a temporary reprieve from my troubles.
Great recommendation. We saw Up last night! Watch Monsters versus Aliens – it’s even better. Did you see Monsters, Inc? Or Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs? We watch Cars once a month since I have a four yr old, but everyoneon else watches, too.
I haven’t seen these, but I will soon. Thanks!
Last weekend there was an “I Love Lucy” marathon. I haven’t laughed or smiled like that in so long. And it felt good to laugh like that. And didn’t Lucy have RA? I don’t know how she did it, but she was great. And such a simple show brightened my whole weekend. BTW I think or at least feel I am in that difficult to control RA group. LOL
She did, but I think she was like many & had ups & downs (flares & remissions). I also read she was very private about it, so we don’t know much.
i know laughter is the best medicine, thats y i laugh a lot when i m not in pain n i also love to laugh. my school is a place where we ppl laugh a lot with friends. thats y love to go to school.
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Oh, that baby is precious. You just can’t help but laugh at his “evil look” — and then his instant shift into sheer joy as his family bursts in the laughter.
I suppose there are all kinds of scientific reasons that laughter “is the best medicine.” But I think mainly it’s this: While we’re laughing, our minds are filled ONLY with whatever it is that’s making us laugh. And it feels GOOD to laugh; it’s a sudden, total release of tension. You can’t laugh spontaneously and retain a bad mood; you have to stop laughing, reach out and wrap that bad mood or misery back around yourself, quick, before anyone sees. But that’s just for hard-core grumbly types. Most of us will revel in laughter and yearn for more. Laughter cancels out pain, even if it’s just for a few moments.
We can’t laugh enough as far as I’m concerned. I spend/waste a lot of time looking for funny stuff on YouTube. I love this baby’s laugh.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P6UU6m3cqk
TOO funny! I sure want that baby too! I laughed so hard the dogs got out of bed and gave me the evil eye for waking them lol.
Thanks for this Kelly – Great timing – I needed a laugh this morning – unfortunately the link to the Evil Eye baby won’t work anymore…………….however the other links do.
I was wondering while I am here if anyone else has taken Laflunomide? I have been on it for about 6 months and had no problem until a few days ago. At first I thought it was the RA – but now I am not so sure. I have the pleuracy (sp?) type feeling but for the past 3 days have had dizziness and have had trouble taking a deep breath – no other ‘side effect’ type things but starting to wonder if I am having a reaction to the med………………(yeah I am probably on the wrong post here but not sure how much longer I am going to be up this morning.
I won’t let it go for very long – have an appt on Monday and if it’s worse before then I will take care of it………just wondered if you or anyone else has had experience with this med.
Thanks for the belly laughs – 😀
Aww, Video no longer available due to copy right issues with Disney! I was looking forward to this. Everyone needs laughter.
Cindy……may someone tickle your funny bone today 🙂
Cannot believe this: I watched it 2 days ago! I’ll ck on this right away. I wonder if his parents sold it to Disney? It was just a family YouTube video. Wow.
Edit: Ok, there’s still lots of links to the funny baby video online. Here’s one – click here. I’m going to try to find a different video for my post since there’s a possible problem. One site I found claimed the family won money on America’s Funniest Videos, so that could be cause for Disney’s claim.
Laughter DOES make a difference. Some days it’s just “if we don’t laugh we’ll cry…” but still. If you need a good laugh about side effects (and weight gain from meds like prednisone) I invite you to watch this clip from one of my presentations. I’ve lived with RA since age 24, 27 years now.
Something I find interesting: I was starting to see a little improvement until I had a really difficult situation arise. I cried for several days over this stressful situation – someone was very unhappy with me and made me very sad. While all of that was going on, my hands, feet, and ankles stayed swollen and tight. I could barely walk, I stayed in such pain. Here’s the interesting bit – I was able to get away and relax. My family and I laughed and had a great time all weekend; I got my mind off my worries. My joints relaxed, swelling went down a bit. I do find that after a good comedy or laugh-filled visit with friends I’m in better physical condition. Great article – and thank you for sharing the Bible verse. I love that one!
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