Is laughter really like medicine?

[gmack]

I am doing a science fair project answering the question: Does laughter affect our ability to relax? I am wondering the best way to test this. One way that demonstrates our relaxation is blood pressure, which is easy to test compared to mood or muscle tension. Should I take a person's bp, have them watch something funny, and then take their bp again? Is there a better way to test this?
Thanks!

[SciB]

Hi,

Great subject for a science project! I agree with you that watching a funny video is a good way to provoke laughter, but what I’m not so sure of is whether this makes a person more relaxed. Laughing involves a lot of muscles and, depending on the person, can even cause a lot of motion—as in rolling on the floor laughing!

So, I question whether BP or heart rate measured right after laughing would correlate with relaxation. What is your hypothesis—that laughing reduces BP? I would think that the physical stimulus of laughter would increase BP—like exercise, but you could test it on family members and see what happens.

This is a tough question and I don’t have a good answer for you. I hope the other experts will weigh in on this. I do believe that laughter is good for people but I think the beneficial effects are seen over the long term. I’m sure there are physiological measurements that would correlate with the benefits of laughter but I’m afraid they would require blood tests or an MRI.

Thinking about MRI just reminded me of a gadget I read about that might work for your test and that is a device that measures brain waves. Amazon sells one called MindWave http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywor ... l1smevsy_b
But there are many others available online. I think this might be more in line of what you need to show relaxation than a BP monitor. They aren’t that expensive and it would be fun to play with yourself!

Let us know what you decide to do.

Sybee

[deleted-132180]

Hi there,

SciB has already given you a lot of great advice, and I really like the idea about that MindReader device.

I did a quick search on what is known about laughter and relaxation, and perhaps this article may be of interest to you: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2249748/.

It seems like it has been shown that laughter can lead to immediate increases in heart rate, respiratory rate, etc., and then is followed by muscle relaxation and a decrease in heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure. With your blood pressure idea, perhaps you can measure your subjects' blood pressure before showing them the video, immediately after showing them the video, and then after a certain period of time after they have seen the video and laughed. I think it would be pretty interesting to see how their blood pressure changes in these different stages and if these changes follow a certain trend or pattern. Perhaps other experts who know more about the physical and psychological effects of laughter can comment on this more?

Let us know if you have anymore questions!

Connie

[deleted-249560]

Measuring blood pressure is one method but in psychology labs they usually use skin conductance - referred to as galvanic skin response (GSR) or cortisol levels. GSR is the effect of your skin becoming more conductive to electricity if you're nervous or stressed. The sweat glands release liquid when you're in a nervous state and it's easy to measure. The whole craze of biofeedback was based on this back in the 1970s and 1980s. Devices you can find all over the internet often have two fingertip sensors or might be shaped like a mouse and have two metal pads for your fingers to rest on. I can't recommend any specific device or vendor, but they generally look like http://images.allegrocentral.com/3F/79/ ... DIUM_0.jpg .

While a bit controversial, others swear by measuring stress using cortisol levels. Cortisol is a hormone that's secreted by your adrenal gland. When you're stressed, the cortisol in your system increases the availability of glucose in your blood so that your brain can work better. These levels are also reflected in your saliva. A common test involves asking the subject to bite on an absorbent wad of cotton which is then analyzed. One of the students in a lab I did some work for had found a quick swab that simply turned color based on the cortisol level. I'm unable to locate those online but perhaps your Google skills are better than mine. With cortisol as your measure, you may need to do the study over a longer period of time. Perhaps have your subjects watch funny movies all weekend and take samples before and after.

Of the methods already suggested, the GSR is certainly one of the more common ways of measuring stress. Blood pressure might work for you if you can avoid the 'white coat' effect. People tend to stress when a medical procedure is about to happen. If you take your BP at home frequently and know what it usually is and then go to the doctor's office, their reading will be higher because of the perceived stress of being at the doctor's. In your tests you want to be careful to not cause that effect yourself. Your subjects will come into the room and quite possibly be stressed over what might happen. That can cause an elevated reading right away.

It's an interesting subject and it would be nice to know what you decided to do and how well it worked.

Howard

[gmack]

Thanks so much for all your help. I am going to look into those two other options and see if I can get either of them.

[CherylSparks]

I also agree. Laughter is really a medicine for health. It take care of blood purifier and issues related to heart are mostly reduce.