Humor Therapy

by Buruk
(colorado)

How are you today?
My name is Buruk, and I am a High school student, I am currently taking Med Prep. I am doing a project on Humor Therapy, which involves a Professional Contact. I was in your website reading about Humor therapy and i am wondering if you could help me answer some questions:
1st What is it?
2nd How effective is Humor Therapy?
3rd Does it work for everyone?
4th What if something is not Funny to the person who is reciving Humor Therapy?
5th How do you use Humor Therapy for Stress?
6th Is it safe? does it have side effect?
7th What effect does humor have on the body? and mind?

please also write your E-mail, and phone number and may be adress.
my teacher might want to call and cheek if i did the assignment right, just to confirm.
Thank you so much for your help, I really appreciate it.

Have a good one

Ben's Answer:

It's not actually "humor therapy" but rather "laughter therapy" or "Laughter Yoga."
An Indian Medical doctor named Kataria developed Laughter Yoga when he realized how healing it is to laugh. Laughing deeply, from the belly, releases all sorts of beneficial hormones and chemicals in the body, reduces stress hormones like Cortisol, and triggers the body's natural healing response. Mentally and emotionally, laughter releases stress, discharges emotions, and clears the mind. It's very hard to think of something negative, terrible and upsetting while you are laughing uncontrollably.

It has nothing to do with whether you find something "funny" or not. Sit down with a friend and have a contest to see who can laugh the hardest. Take turns constricting the belly forcefully, throwing your hands up to the sky, openning your mouth wide and shouting "HA-Ha-HAaaaa." While you do this - try your best to not smile. The first one who smiles loses that round. Chances are, you will both end up laughing a lot - and it won't just be fake laughter - it will turn into real laughter - and that's the whole point of it.


Nothing works for everyone, but everyone can get at least some good healing benefit from laughter therapy. It's quite safe to laugh!

Stress causes the majority of health problems - heart disease, asthma, back pain, headaches, anxiety, depression and many many more. Laughter naturally lowers blood pressure, strenghtens the immune system to fight infection, and lowers stress.

We start to laugh naturally when we're just a couple of months old. If we kept it up, we'd stay very healthy, but many people gradually laugh less and less, and become more and more stressed. These videos are a perfect example of how laughter is contageous:







If you want, tell you teacher to look at this web page to prove you did your homework.

Best wishes,
Ben Schwarcz, MFT
Santa Rosa Psychotherapist
Phone: 707-326-5566