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Most adults rarely get an attack of the giggles. Children do it frequently. And hard laughing is like an aerobic workout. William F. Fry, M.D., emeritus clinical professor of psychiatry at Stanford University Medical School, says that laughing 100 times is equivalent to 15 minutes on a stationary bicycle or 10 minutes on a rowing machine. Herbert M. Lefcourt, Ph.D., psychology professor at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, has looked closely at the impact of laughing on the immune system. In one 1999 experiment, he looked for increased levels of immunoglobulin A(S-IgA) concentration in students' saliva in students who had listened to a funny tape. S-IgA according to Lefcourt, is "the first line of defense against viral and bacterial infections." What Lefcourt found was that students who listened to the funny tape had increased levels of S-IgA in their saliva—compared to students who merely listened to a university lecture. Lefcourt also discovered that the students who had a well-developed sense of humor produced even more S-IgA than the ones who didn't have much of a sense of humor. I guess this means Robin Williams doesn't get sick very often! The real key for stress management and coping ability is the capacity to see what is funny—even in stressful situations. Michelle G. Newman, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology at Pennsylvania State University, conducted an experiment in which she asked students to redefine stressful situations in a humorous manner. She found that students who could see the funny in a difficult situation, showed significantly lower tension and physiological arousal after watching a film showing a gruesome industrial accident. Newman concludes that people can be taught the skills of seeing the humor in situations so they can learn to moderate their stress reaction. This month's Stress Corner is based on an article by Rebecca A. Clay, "Researchers Harness the Power of Humor," American Psychological Association Monitor, September, 1997. We think this topic is so important, we will continue the discussion in March's Stress Corner. See you then!Frey comments: "With these results we can predict, two days after an accident, how quickly a patient will recover." He urges doctors and nurses to get the patients involved in healing themselves: "If they do that right, they will have, in effect, a free therapy at hand." Janelle M. Barlow, Ph.D.
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