Does Humor Increase Longevity?
For about 20 years, the letterhead for my stationary has included the phrase, "They who laugh, last." I love this idea, since it captures the notion that humor helps you endure or cope with the most difficult of life circumstances. It could also be interpreted to mean that those with a better sense of humor live longer. This is a claim that is often made, and people generally point to famous comedians or humorous performers who lived very long lives (like George Burns, Bob Hope, Victor Borge or Red Skelton) to back up the idea.
To this point, we have seen that humor and laughter make important direct contributions to good health by strengthening the immune system, reducing cardiovascular reactivity and lowering blood pressure - apparently by triggering a dilation of the inner lining of arteries. They also have a more indirect (but equally important) impact on health by reducing the health-damaging effects of stress - namely, by promoting muscle relaxation (with an accompanying reduction of psychological tension) and reducing the level of cortisol and other stress-related hormones circulating in the blood. They also reduce pain, which boosts the quality of life by sustaining a positive daily mood. While researchers have only recently begun to relate humor to specific disease conditions, the available evidence again points to an important health-sustaining role of humor and laughter for CHD, asthma, certain allergies and diabetes.
But can humor actually lead to a longer life? The last section of this chapter documents evidence showing that positive emotion from other sources does predict survival rates - both among healthy individuals and people who are seriously ill. So there is every reason to think that humor may add years to your life. And recent research does support this idea.
Dr. Sven Svebak, a psychologist in Norway, tracked the health status of 54,000 fellow Norwegians over a seven-year period. When he looked only at those who developed cancer during this period, individuals scoring higher on a measure of sense of humor at the beginning of the study (2015 patients) had a 70% higher survival rate than those with lower sense of humor scores.179
|
Dr. Svebak also studied a group of patients who had been diagnosed with end-stage renal (kidney) failure. Forty-six percent of these patients died during the two-year duration of the study. Again, sense of humor predicted who survived longer. Those scoring above the median on a sense of humor scale increased their odds of survival by 31%.180 While the causal mechanism behind the better survival rates of the high sense of humor individuals in these studies is not clear, Dr. Svebak concluded that the most important factor was probably the better coping skills shared by those with a better sense of humor. These superior coping skills, he argued, reduced the health-deteriorating effects of disease-related stressors experienced by these patients. The last 25 years of research on mind-body relationships (see discussion of psychoneuroimmunology below) has made it clear that better coping skills, along with other "psychological" variables are closely associated with underlying neurophysiological changes which either support or interfere with good health. In the years ahead, we can expect to better understand just how these changes contribute to improved kidney functioning/health.
|
While the above findings are promising in their suggestion that humor and laughter may lead to a longer life, there is also some evidence that is inconsistent with this conclusion. Cheerfulness as a long-standing personality trait is one quality that tends to go with a better sense of humor. In an analysis of data of more than 1000 individuals from a famous long-term longitudinal study (known as the Terman Life Cycle Study, begun in 1921), individuals found to be more cheerful at earlier points in their lives (this was assessed at age 12) actually had higher death rates throughout their lifetimes than less cheerful people.181 The explanation offered for this surprising finding was that these more cheerful people actually tended to engage in more risky behaviors than their less cheerful peers. Like the high sense of humor police chiefs discussed earlier, more cheerful people smoked more, drank more alcohol and engaged more often in other behaviors known to be health risks.182 If these and other health-harming behaviors and lifestyles really are a characteristic of people with a stronger sense of humor, this helps explain some of the inconsistent findings in the general field of humor and health.
The specific health-promoting effects of humor and laughter discussed throughout this chapter, then, may be countered in everyday life among those with a strong sense of humor by behavior that interferes with health and wellness. There may be on ongoing tug-of-war going on between health-promoting and health-weakening influences in the bodies of those with a good sense of humor throughout their lives. The outcome of this battle would obviously be unique to each individual. The overall balance of positive vs. negative health influence here would depend on the extent of daily illness-promoting behaviors. The greater the frequency and extreme to which illness-promoting behaviors occur on an ongoing basis, the greater the extent to which any health-promoting benefits of humor and laughter would be canceled out.
