Laughter the best medicine?

[Talik]

I read an article recently claiming that laughter could actually help to reduce pain in patients with chronic diseases. I also saw a movie about a woman who was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago and managed to 'heal' herself by watching funny movies all day, every day, until the symptoms of her disease disappeared.

This got me thinking. Is it really possible that laughter and a positive attitude can really cure a disease that is considered incurable? What are your thoughts on this?

[Metaliberty]

I think it is an interesting point to consider, Talik. However, it is important not to jump to conclusions with things like this. For example, perhaps it was another factor involved with the cancer that was not considered. A frequently stated quote in science goes "correlation is not causation". It means that just because two factors are present together does not mean one caused the other. An obvious example: if it rains and you win the lottery, it does not mean that raining causes you to win lotteries. 

[Alchemy66]

Laughter can help cure, or at least remedy, some mental health disorders. I'm confident that it helps with more physical illnesses by strengthening relationships and improving one's mood and its concomitant physiology. However, a bottle of laughter can't cure cancer. Perhaps depression, but not cancer.

[Jason Kleffman]

There is absolutely a correlation between laughter and feeling better. Anytime Ive ever had a moment of the giggles they usually resulted in a better mood and state of mind.

[Postitgirl]

It does not seem completely out of the realm of possibility that laughter could have a curative effect. There is so much we do not understand about our bodies and our minds...and, especially, the connection between them. Recent research suggests there is much more connection between them than we had imagined, but what that is and how it works is still pretty much a mystery at this point. I have spent some time trying to imagine how it might work and haven't got a clue. That would generally lead me to being quite skeptical about it. However, I actually feel very open-minded on the subject because I have seen it work. (Or appear to work.)

My wonderful Aunt Helen fell ill when I was very young...with what, nobody knew. She suffered from general weakness, fatigue, weight gain, headaches, depression, etc. It was a list of vague, sort of non-specific, not-so-impressive symptoms that, when occurring in unpredictable clusters were debilitating. So, for nine long years, she languished, seeking a diagnosis but never finding one, trying many remedies and therapies none of which worked. Finally, she decided to try laughter as a cure. I don't recall whether it was to be a cure for her overall condition or her depression, but I know that she acquired an impressive collection of funny books, articles, magazines, pictures, posters, records, tapes, movies. She saw funny plays, met funny people, said funny things, knew funny jokes. She made puns and wrote humorous stories. Journaled. And. I think it took under a year, but all of her symptoms went away completely...for about 5 years. At that point, she experienced some rather sudden and marked personality changes and was diagnosed with a brain tumor. She died within six months.

It could have been pure coincidence. But I am not convinced.  

[JewelsCat22]

This is a very interesting idea.  I certainly believe that a positive attitude can help you in life in general.  A positive attitude can help us cope with a serious illness, such as cancer, but I'm not sure that a positive attitude alone can actually heal us from the condition.  I believe miracles are possible, and I believe they do occur.  

Unfortunately, no actual scientific studies can be done to, "prove," whether a positive attitude can heal illness because for a true scientific study to take place, a scientist would need to be able to control all other variables that could influence the outcome, such as one's living situation, the treatment one receives, the food one eats, and so on.  

I wonder if there are currently any studies out there that can correlate a positive attitude with better disease outcomes.