LESSON 3: Why Is Laughter the Best Medicine
§ Answer the following questions in Spanish.
How
often do you laugh?
1.
Do you like movies like Patch Adams?
2.
Do you think laughter can cure
illnesses?
3.
Do you think we are laughing
less than when we were children?
§ 
Read the following article called “Why Is
Laughter the Best Medicine” and then complete the diagram that follows.
Why Is Laughter the Best Medicine
A group
of adults were lying in a circle on the floor listening to a recording of “The
Laughing Policeman”. At first everyone felt ridiculous, and only the odd
nervous ones giggled, but suddenly the laughter became real and quickly spread
around the room.
Doctors
were starting to believe that laughter not only improved your state of mind,
but actually affected your entire physical well-being. The people lying in a
circle were attending a workshop to learn the art of laughter.
William
Fry – a psychiatrist from California – studied the effects of laughter on the
body. He got patients to watch Laurel and Hardy films, and monitored their
blood pressure, heart rate and muscle tone. He found that laughter had a similar
effect to physical exercise. It speeds up the heart rate, increased blood
pressure and quickens breathing. Moreover, it makes our facial and stomach
muscles work. Fry thought that laughter was a type of jogging on the spot.
Laughter can even provide a kind of pain relief. Fry had proved that laughter
produced endorphins – chemicals in the body that relieve pain.
Researchers
from Texas divided forty university students into four groups. The first group
listened to a funny cassette for twenty minutes, the second listened to a
cassette intended to relax them, the third heard an informative tape, while the
fourth group listened to no tape at all. Researchers found that if they
produced pain in the students, those who had listened to the humorous tape
could tolerate the discomfort for much longer.
Patch
Adams is both a doctor and a performing clown in Virginia, America. He was
convinced that humor was a part of medical consultation. “There’s evidence to
suggest that laughter stimulates the immune system”, said Adams, “yet hospitals
and clinics are well-known for their depressing atmospheres”. Adams practised what he preached. The real one
was wearing his waist-length hair in a ponytail all the time and also had a
handlebar moustache on his face -not like the one in the movie. He usually put
on a red nose when he was seeing his patients.
§ What does the text say about
the following concepts?
“The Laughing Policeman”
Workshop
William Fry
Pain Relief
Researchers from Texas
Patch Adams
Read the following article called “Why Is
Laughter the Best Medicine” and then complete the diagram that follows.
“The Laughing Policeman”
Workshop
William Fry
Pain Relief
Researchers from Texas
Patch Adams
