What Is Humor Therapy And Is It Beneficial?

Humor Therapy commonly called as Laughter Therapy is the latest way of healing from all kinds of ailments. This form of therapy uses the power that humor and laughter has which goes a long way in healing many ailments in patients.^{(1, 2, 5)} Humor Therapy works on different ways in making patients laugh. Humor Therapy is generally tried on children and elderly who find it difficult to cope up with whatever illness they have.^{(3, 4)}

In humor therapy, patients are made to laugh by giving them funny materials, jokes and watch TV laughter shows.⁽⁵⁾ This mode of treatment with Humor Therapy is quite new and research is still ongoing to see what effects it has on people who have serious medical conditions. Whether humor therapy is of benefit or not is something which has been discussed in brief below in the article.

Humor Therapy definitely is beneficial as it improves the quality of life of the patient.⁽⁶⁾ Humor Therapy works on people and benefits them irrespective of their age. This way of treatment using Humor Therapy is deemed to be very effective in not only coping with serious medical conditions, but also takes care of any depression that may sink in patients due to the illness itself.⁽⁷⁾

There have been various studies conducted and research is still ongoing of the connection between the brain and how humor therapy facilitates healing. It has been found that laughter plays a major role in altering the chemistry in the brain and also gives a big boost to the immune system of the body.⁽⁸⁾

Humor Therapy makes an individual feel like he is more in control of the situation at hand and is ready to face the challenge that a stiff and prolonged treatment poses for him. All the fear and stress of the illness and treatment go out of the window as a result of Humor Therapy.

As of now, this mode of treatment, i.e. Humor Therapy is basically used for terminally ill or chronically ill patients.⁽⁹⁾ Humor Therapy helps in calming down patients and de-stress them. Humor therapy also gets rid of any negative mindset that the patient might be in due to the illness.

Several times it is seen that after being diagnosed with a medical condition, like cancer, patients go into severe depression and feel helpless and hopeless.⁽⁷⁾ This is where Humor Therapy has its maximal benefit, as it changes the way a patient thinks and starts adding life to days and not think of days to life.

Humor Therapy also does wonders for caregivers of chronically ill patients.⁽¹⁰⁾ As they themselves are at risk of contracting many infections being so close with terminally ill or chronically ill patients, Humor Therapy plays the role of a stress buster for such caregivers especially for those who take care of stubborn patients.⁽¹⁰⁾ This results in them performing much better and getting more positive results from the patients.

To conclude, Humor Therapy is a completely safe option and extremely beneficially; especially for people with terminal conditions. A physician will be very happy to approve of any such therapy, which has the chances of improving the quality of life of a patient and even delay the inevitable.

As there is no cost burden attached to Humor Therapy, no risk, no side effects, and there is also always a chance of improvement in the patient; so there is no reason for any physician or a caregiver not to practice Humor Therapy as a means to aid in treatment of patients.

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