Open Writing

What we need is a whiff of laughing gas before we sober ourselves to death. Levity - whether jokes, jests or quips; punnish, satirical or knock knock; ironic, droll or blonde - is becoming as close to a lost art as gold leaf on a paperback.

Ironically, but not funny, once doctors announced that laughter is good for our health, the less we are laughing. In the 1950’s,according to research by Dr. Michael Titze, we averaged eighteen minutes of chuckles every twenty four hours; at the moment we allow ourselves a paltry six minutes a day. Furthermore, he chides, "the things at which we used to laugh heartily no longer stimulate even the faintest smile. It takes a very hilarious joke to make us laugh."

It is not enough to smirk smugly while sipping our lattés - nonfat, no sugar, no buzz and no biscotti. - we need to laugh, and loudly enough for our hearts to take note. Research from the Maryland Medical Center shows heart patients laugh less than their ticker healthier friends, and what’s even funnier, they don’t appreciate a joke even if it’s right in front of them.

Here are a couple of questions from their diagnostic test:

If you arrive at a party and find that someone else is wearing a piece of clothing identical to yours, would you (a) not find it particularly amusing (b) be amused but not show it (c) smile (d) laugh (e) laugh heartily?

The healthiest answer is (e).

If you are eating in a restaurant with some friends and the waiter accidentally spills a drink on you, would you (a) not find it particularly amusing (b) be amused but not show it (c) smile (d) laugh (e) laugh heartily?

Again, the best answer is (e).

Overall, those with healthy hearts tended to laugh heartily throughout the test, while the rest of the group were not particularly amused about anything.

Good humor, it turns out, is good for more than the heart. Why trek to the sports club or jog in the cold when you can laugh your whole body into shape? A raucous session of belly laughs, all alone in the privacy of your own home, will firm up those pecs and at the same time, clean out your sinuses whether they need it or not. It has been noted (by an anonymous authority) that laughing 100 times is as good as fifteen minutes on an exercise bike or ten minutes of rowing.

Some people do not laugh well alone; for them there are the laughing clubs. These started up in India where an estimated 500 groups, indoors and out, chortle their way through a blend of laughter, aerobics and yoga. Typically, laugh clubbers warm up with a spirited “Ho Ho Ho, Ha Ha Ha” chant. Then they share their homework: original laughs such as the "subway laugh," where members crowd into a tight circle and laugh as they push each other around; the "lion laugh" where they pounce at each other, giggling and scratching the air; the tickle laugh where the leader hollers "tickle me" and everybody chases around tickling each other.

It is getting so you can find a laughing club almost anywhere in the world, even in my home town. The U.S. News reports, "Peals of laughter cut through the persistent early morning drizzle at Seattle's Green Lake Park. As passersby gape and then grin four men and women titter, giggle, chortle, and guffaw, in what looks like a yoga class gone goofy...they alternate rhythmic chanting and clapping with penguin like waddling and pretend sneezing—all while howling with laughter." They meet three days a week at 7 am and are reportedly working on a rain laugh. I have never heard it; in Seattle even rain laughs get rained out.

Although laughter is good for our health, in case we should laugh ourselves sick, two teachers from Penn. State have come up with an antidote. They decided to find out whether the musical tastes of their students leaned more toward gloom and doom or foolishness by playing them two songs: Elton John's Princess Diana version of Candle in the Wind coupled with "Weird Al" Yankovic's parody of Michael Jackson singing Beat it and then asked which one the kids preferred.

The students said even though they feel depressed listening to Elton, they would rather do that than sit through Weird Al. Why? In their infinite undergraduate wisdom, they regard Candle in the Wind as "esthetically superior" to Beat It and that made all the difference.

Which does cause one to wonder. If laughter is good for our health, are some kinds better than others? Can your heart tell the difference between a dirty joke and a line from Noel Coward? Or is it simply that a laugh is a laugh is a laugh?

If laughter gets too complicated to be funny we could always go back to the medical advice available when we were laughing eighteen minutes a day but no one was counting. "An apple a day keeps the doctor away" sounds esthetically sufficient to me. If you bit into a crisp Delicious and discovered a worm, would you (a) not find it particularly amusing (b) be amused but not show it (c) smile (d) laugh (e) laugh heartily (f) tickle it?

The apple or the worm? Which came first?

**

Gloria MacKay
editor@bonzerplus.org.au
Bonzer: www.bonzer.org.au