WEB EXCLUSIVEThe Best Medicine
For Dr. Steven Sultanoff, pursuing good health is a laughing matter
by SOPHIA KERCHER
He may not actually be funny himself, but for the past two decades, Dr. Steven Sultanoff has been an evangelist for therapeutic humor. The clinical psychologist, who leans more toward clever than hilarious, teaches the value of jokes, and the belly shaking that comes with them, to medical professionals and therapists at Pepperdine University and at workshops statewide.
Over the years, Sultanoff has come up with his own model for helping people through applied wit and whimsy. He calls it Humor Matters. But it’s far more than fun and games—his approach to levity has a purpose. “It’s not like you sit down and I tell you jokes. You talk about something, then maybe I exaggerate something, and you laugh at it. And the reason I might have exaggerated it was to help you shift your thinking about whatever it was,” he says.
Sultanoff had the aha moment that would shape his career during a training session for cognitive therapy. He realized everything he was trying to accomplish—managing our thoughts, behavior, feelings and even biochemistry—could be effected with humor. He developed a three-component model: laughter, mirth and wit.
“When you laugh,” Sultanoff says, “it affects you physiologically; when you experience mirth, it affects you emotionally; and when you exercise your wit, it affects you cognitively.” He has been known to don a clown nose to change the mood during a session, and he often instructs his clients who suffer from phobias to visualize a time when they laughed so hard it literally brought tears to their eyes.
Sultanoff sees proof daily that the emotional shifts stimulated by this are a beneficial physical aid. “You feel less stressed, and it seems to increase the tolerance to pain.”
Recently, there has been much media fanfare over a growing community that believes in pairing a hearty guffaw with breathing exercises—known as laughter yoga.
Dr. Madan Kataria, a medical doctor from Mumbai, founded Laughter Yoga Clubs back in 1995. He and Sultanoff have appeared together on panels, and though their approach is different, their goal is shared. “In laughter yoga, anyone can laugh without comedy,” Kataria says. “You start by fake laughing, and then once you lose inhibitions, it becomes real—and contagious.”
It should come as no surprise that California is home to the most laughter clubs in the nation. “The last time I was in Los Angeles, I suggested they start calling it Laugh Angeles,” Kataria says, punctuating his sentence with booming ha-ha’s. Celebrities Goldie Hawn and Oprah have endorsed the shift to laughter therapies. Former ballerina and Playboy model Cynthia Toussaint is a believer as well. She founded For Grace, a nonprofit for women in pain, and selected Sultanoff to speak at the group’s third conference, Gender Matters. After decades of enduring complex regional pain syndrome—sometimes known as the suicide disease because of the constant pain—she says developing a more jestful nature has helped her weather years of suffering.
“There are many options for pain, and we need all of them,” Toussaint says. “Plus, you get to have fun.”
Medical practitioners agree humor is a welcome distraction and valuable therapeutic tool, though even Sultanoff acknowledges additional research is needed to determine if fits of giggles can ever be considered an actual cure.
Laughter being the best medicine will have to remain a cliché—for at least a little while longer.
Categories: A Picture of Health
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Which is why I have my daily dose of Letterman every night before I retire. Puts me in a better mood!
Posted by: nobeezwax | 10/04/2010 at 02:46 PM
great article.
hahahahaha.
Posted by: aaron | 10/06/2010 at 12:38 PM
What a wonderful article! I love the idea of laughter yoga, and I agree--I believe in the power of laughter to heal. Patch Adams was a regular speaker at my college, and he founded a hospital based on laughter healing.
Posted by: Marilyn Friedman | 10/06/2010 at 01:50 PM
Dear Mrs Kercher: great article. I've always wondered at how bright men like Dr Sultanoff could so easily miss the mark. Humor is no doubt great and powerful. And it's also a cognitive process that has severe limitations. How can you laugh when you don't have a sense of humor (shining in society is hard for many), when you are in pain, and overall when you see black everywhere for whatever reason? Laughing as a form of exercise (a.k.a. Laughter Yoga) does not have these limitations. It helps you make happiness a choice and not a consequence. The American School of Laughter Yoga is based in L.A. and spearheads the Laughter Yoga movement in North America. I would love to have a chance to talk to you to give you a different viewpoint on laughter.
Posted by: Sebastien Gendry | 10/06/2010 at 03:19 PM
A thought:
Despite it's possible or probable healing properties, the source of humor is often in pain, embarrassment, and loneliness, with the strange result that the people who inspire and make humor (e.g. comedians) are often much more miserable -- or much less happy -- than the people who consume that humor (e.g. an audience). Indeed, generally speaking, attractive people who've led extremely satisfied and "happy" lives from the beginning of their existence are not often people who's sense of humor or "joke making ability," as one might term it, is that well developed. Few star high school quarterbacks go on to become successful stand up comedians. I suspect that the biological or cognitive processes that somehow boost your health when you enjoy a joke, or laugh, are very different from the ones which inspire someone to write that joke or bring about that laughter.
That's not to say people must be continually miserable to be continually funny (although this surely is possible) but that a sense of the ridiculous and capricious nature of humor is often most highly developed in those who at one point were the victims of its very charms -- most probably at the hands of their fellows.
Posted by: Trevor | 10/20/2010 at 02:53 PM
You may remenber the four proverbs:
One‘s words reflect one‘s thinking.
Out of debt, out of danger.
Out of office, out of danger.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Posted by: nike air max plus | 10/31/2010 at 05:49 PM
Wow this is a great post. I believe, laughter is the best medicine. It will ease the problems you have. .that’s why i love to laugh. :)
Posted by: Lasix 40mg online | 01/23/2011 at 11:05 PM
Laughter is universal for all human beings. Humor is rooted in truth. The human condition. Exaggerated, twisted, or given a rug pull, humor touches our soul. Having a "sense of humor" is not the same as being "funny." A person who is not particularly funny usually understands and appreciates humor. Whether humor stems from pain is only one facet. Humor recognizes human truths that we all can identify with. This isn't about the "sad clown" but more importantly, that humor and laughter give us all joy. And joy releases endorphins. It's fun to laugh. And that's very basic to human beings. Whether or not it's a panacea is stretching things. As cliché as it may seem, we all need more laughter in this world. More love and less hate. From a simple smile to laughing to the point of tears, what happens, even if fleeting, beats being melancholy or even morose.
Posted by: David Toyoshima | 04/25/2011 at 01:20 AM
What is not explicit in the article are the physiological effects of laughter: It literally aerates the body. Laughter is a spasm of many short breaths, piqued by a mind stimulated by input that makes the entire body feel better. A good laugh does the same good as a short run. If you laugh more, it's a longer run, or any number of similarly healthy bodily acts (sex, swimming).
The only real disease is congestion. The stagnant pond creates a pool of disease. The fresh running stream creates healthy water delicious to the taste. Cancer occurs less in an aerated body. Cells don't malfunction as much. Hearts not exercised, even with a little more laughter, atrophy. Blood vessels become clogged without a good, exercised pump (and a smarter diet the refreshed brain realizes). Indolence is suicide. Activity, including laughter, is like walking up a nice, steep hill or mountain, where at the top, amazingly, your mind is so much clearer, not like back in the office where you're sitting at a desk, because your lungs and heart have been exercised.
When you're sitting, dig into something that spurs laughter. Deep breathing exercises work too, tho are not as much fun. Laughter feels good, and so creates desire for more laughter, which is literally more health, and a longer lifespan to enjoy life. You realize life is not a depressant---it's literally Paradise.
Posted by: Craig Hill | 04/25/2011 at 09:52 AM