“Gentlemen, why don’t you laugh? With the fearful strain that is upon me day and night, if I did not laugh, I should die, and you need this medicine as much as I do.”
Abraham Lincoln, during the Civil War
According to the Mayo Clinic laughter can be a major health benefit. That is no joke. While humor can’t cure all ailments, there is mounting evidence of the positive things it can do. In the short term it can stimulate the heart, lungs, and muscles, while increasing the endorphins that are released to the brain. We have all experienced how laughter can reduce stress. A good sense of humor can, in the long run, improve the immune system by releasing neuropeptides that fight stress. It can help relieve pain. Laughter can reduce stress, depression, and anxiety.
Humor uplifts. Humor builds rapport. Humor gives insight. Humor provides perspective. Humor helps us cope. Humor transcends differences. Humor helps us to not take our aging selves too seriously. “Laughter is a form of jogging for the innards,” concludes Norman Cousins in his 1979 landmark book, Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient. Laughter makes it possible for good things to happen both physically and emotionally.
When asked to describe what constitutes successful aging, elderly people consistently mention a sense of humor as one of the most important virtues. Humor can help thwart the decline in cognitive abilities among the elderly. (Gerontology, Humor and Aging, Gil Greengross, 2013, Study by Bowling A, Diepe P.: 2005)
When spending time with a dying friend, the two of us reminisced, sat silently, or talked about feelings. What I remember most vividly were the times we laughed. Humor played a central role in bringing value to his last days. I brought a humorous story or joke with me when I visited him. Humor opened the door that allowed us to talk freely about his pending death. A few days before he died, he asked if I thought he would go to Hell for something he had said to a nurse. We smiled and I responded, “No. You are going to Hell as a life-time achievement award.” It was the last time I saw him laugh. While humor was not able to cure him, it brought quality of life to both him and me during his last days.
Some types of humor can do more harm than good. Aggressive negative humor that disparages others is not helpful. The fear of being laughed at increases with age when age-related vulnerabilities are the cause of ridicule.
However, a prescription of humor is more than funny; it is an important medicine, an ally for all of us as we age. The ability to laugh at our aging with all its complexity and challenges adds spice to life while helping us both physically and mentally. Here are some examples:
O’Reilly, who was in his eighties and somewhat senile, was on trial for armed robbery. The jury took pity on him and came back with the verdict “not guilty.” “Wonderful,” said O’Reilly, “Does that mean I can keep the money?”
A gentleman in his mid-nineties, very well dressed, hair groomed perfectly, great looking suit, smelling slightly of a good after shave, walks into an upscale cocktail lounge. Seated at the bar is an attractive woman in her eighties. The gentleman walks over, sits alongside her, orders a drink, takes a sip, turns to her and says, “So tell me, do I come here often?”
When I retired, I asked my good friend Jim what was considered formal attire for a retired person. He said, “Tied shoes.”
Aging is when you hear “snap, crackle, pop” before you get to breakfast.
And Yogi Berra adds an insightful tidbit: “Always go to other people’s funerals otherwise they won’t go to yours.”
There are individuals who keep their humor until their last moments on earth. Love them for it. My favorite last words were spoken by the Irish writer and poet, Oscar Wilde:
“I am in a duel to the death with this wallpaper. One of us has to go.”
Of course, we need more than humor in old age. It is important to stay in as good physical health as possible. The following exercise has been very helpful to me and I would like to share it with you:
Begin by standing on a comfortable surface where you have plenty of room on each side.
With a 5-lb potato bag in each hand, extend your arms straight out from your sides and hold them there as long as you can. Try to reach a full minute, then relax.
Each day you will find you can hold the position for just a bit longer.
After a couple of weeks move up to a 10-lb bag. Then try 50-lb potato bags and eventually try to get to where you can lift a 100-lb potato bag in each hand and hold your arms straight for more than a full minute. (I am at this level.)
After you feel confident at this level, put a potato in each bag.
Aging medical issues can initiate a subconscious fear of never being able to function normally again, creating a separation between us and the actions and activities of the world around us. Our physical and mental inadequacy can play with our self-esteem. A fear that decisions are being made behind our back may surface. And much needed human contact may diminish.
An important response is to take humor seriously. With humor comes compassion, shared intimacy, and an improved attitude about one’s situation, bringing forth such emotions as love, hope, courage, and forgiveness. As the Mayo Clinic and others have documented, laughter triggers the body’s own life-giving medicines.
In 1971 Norman Cousins (1915-1990) was crippled by an unidentified auto-immune illness and was not expected to live. This man, who at age 25 became editor in chief of the Saturday Review, turned his condition around by watching Marx Brother’s movies and Candid Camera reruns. Cousins credited humor as the major medicine that facilitated his recovery. He authored twenty-two books and was the first lay professor in UCLA’s history to teach in its department of psychiatry and biobehavioral science and worked with several U.S. presidents as a world peace advocate. He died of a heart attack in 1990.
There are times laughter may well be the best medicine. However, regardless of our physical condition, when we laugh with one another we enhance the quality of our lives.
Written by: Hartzell Cobbs
Hartzell Cobbs is the retired CEO of Mountain States Group (now Jannus, Inc.), a diverse nonprofit human service organization. He is the author of the recent book, RavenWind, that is available through outlets such as Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Archway Publishing. His first book, Thanatos and the Sage: A Spiritual Approach to Aging, is available through Amazon.
More about Dr. Cobbs’ latest book, Ravenwind…
From ancient lore, down millenniums, traveling through worldwide mythologies, legends, and folktales, the mythical raven is entwined in the history of mankind. Most researchers agree that about twenty thousand years ago the first Americans came from Siberia across the Bering Land Bridge to what is now North America. The Siberians and their shamans were accompanied by the mythical raven who mediated between the physical and spiritual worlds.
With the Siberian influence, Northwest Native American mythology speaks of the raven as creator, destroyer, and trickster. As in Siberia, raven soars on the wind between the great spirit/mystery and the physical world. Raven teaches respect for earth and the oneness of all that is.
In RavenWind, author Hartzell Cobbs offers at look at the raven’s role in world history and in Native American myths, legends, and folktales. He tells how the raven of folklore calls one to follow, to listen, and experience life with all its complexity, insight, ambiguity, contraction, and humor. With an emphasis on Native American tradition, Cobbs explores the presence of mythical raven in the mundane.