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Stop Being so Serious -- Your Life Depends on it

January 5, 2006

Adventist News Network

Wendi Rogers

(excerpt)

 

Nearly 85 percent of people who visit their primary healthcare physicians do so because of a stress-related disease. More people are on anti-depressants than at any other time in the history of medicine. And it's probably no surprise that stress has proven to be deadly to the immune system. This according to Dr. Lee Berk, associate professor in the Schools of Public Health and Medicine at Loma Linda University in California.

In an increasingly stressful world, what is one to do? Laugh, apparently. That's funny, you say? Well, studies have shown that it's no laughing matter -- or perhaps it actually is. Laughing is at the heart of a serious issue about bio-translation -- how your biology translates the good stuff in life, says Dr. Berk.

"There are chemical mechanisms of communication between the brain, central nervous system, hormone system, and immune system, and how they all talk to each other," he says. If you go for a root canal, you experience sweaty palms and nervousness. "But the reciprocal for positive emotions is very true also," he says. "When we experience the anticipation of positive events, we benefit from that."

Stress hormones, he says, are lowered by anticipating a positive event. And, ironically, he says the words "anticipation" and "expectation" are synonyms for the word "hope," which has significant meaning for Adventists.

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Perhaps this could be translated globally, because laughter is a universal language. Dr. Berk says, "We jog for no reason other than the health benefits, so why not laugh for no reason because there are health benefits?"

So, go ahead: You have the doctor's permission to laugh. And if you must be serious about something, be serious about laughter.

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