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DateLine Sunday, 02 December 2007

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Laugh till you burst

Healthy humour:

Humour and laughter have a good effect on your immune system. When was the last time you laughed really hard - a hearty, side splitting belly laugh that suddenly grabbed you and sent you reeling out of control?

Modern science is beginning to confirm that this kind of laughter is not only enjoyable but also health promoting. Laughter is an invigorating tonic that heightens and brightens the mood, gently releasing us from tensions and social constraints.

Best antidote

Laughter is an affirmation of our humaneness, a face saving way to express our anxieties, fears and other hidden emotions to others. It breaks the ice, builds trust and draws us together into a common state of well-being.

Humour may be one of our best antidotes to stressful situations. When confronted with a threatening situation, animals have two situations either they flee or they fight. We humans have a second alternative: to laugh. By seeing the humour in stressful situations we may be able to change our responses to the threat. When we laugh, we simply cannot be worrying deeply at the same time.

What research shows?

If you hate to do a regular workout, laughter may be the exercise programme you've been looking for! Laughter is called "inner jogging". A robust laugh gives the muscles of your face, shoulders, diaphragm and abdomen a good workout.

Heart rate and blood pressure temporarily rise, breathing becomes faster and deeper and oxygen surges through your bloodstream. Sometimes your muscles go limp and your blood pressure temporarily may fall, leaving you in a mellow euphoria. A good laugh can burn up as many calories per hour as brisk walking.

During a good hearty laugh, your brain orchestrates hormonal rushes that rouse you to a high-level alertness and numb pain. Researchers speculate that laughter triggers the release of endomorphines, the brains opiates. This may account for the pain relief that accompanies laughter.

It has been long recognised that stress weakens the immune system, thereby increasing the vulnerability to illnesses. Only in the mid 1980s, however, did researchers study the impact of humour and laughter on the immune system. Research showing that individuals with a better sense of humour have stronger immune systems is important since it shows the importance of making the effort to improve your sense of humour.

How to use humour

Babies start to laugh when they are 10 weeks old: six weeks later they are laughing about once every hour. Four-year-olds laugh once every four minutes. The average grown up is said to laugh only about 15 times per day.

Sadly, our culture seems to inhibit humour. We learn to associate growing up with "getting serious" and being serious is somehow associated with being solemn and humourless. Sometimes we repress our good humour, because we are afraid that others will think we are frivolous or foolish. Here are some suggestions for repairing your sense of humour and regaining healthy laughter.

Expose yourself to humour: There is a lot of funny material around. Actively seek out things that make you laugh.

Keep a humour journal: Get into the habit of listening to the unintentionally amusing remark. Watch for the wonderfully funny young children spontaneously say or write. Listen for the amusing slips of tongue or the amusing error or the clever pun.

Tell a joke: Having a good sense of humour doesn't mean you have to have a store of jokes or tell them perfectly. Do not worry about how well you are telling it.

Sometimes screwing up the delivery can create something that's even funnier than the original joke.Laugh at yourself: Focus on yourself rather than others.

If you expect to do everything right all of the time, then you can't afford to have a sense of humour. But if you can allow yourself the inevitable mistakes and stupidities then you can laugh at yourself.

Those who can laugh at themselves have a much stronger sense of self worth and higher esteem than those who can't. The real test of seeing whether or not you can laugh at yourself is if you can take a bit of teasing. We all need a few things that we are willing to be teased about by our nearest and dearest. But they really do have to be things you can see the funny side of too.

Try humour instead of anxiety or anger: A stressful situation can sometimes be transformed into a bit of fun if you can see the humour in it. Next time you are livid about something try to make your point with humour instead of anger.

Humour can also help reduce anxiety. If you are terrified of speaking in public or of making a presentation, for example, imagine your audience wearing funny hats. Practise by imagining a stressful situation. Then invent a humorous response to it and rehearse it.

Hang out with happy people: Make sure that people around you are fun to be with. Certain people make you feel relaxed and happy. Others are too depressing, or relentlessly serious.

Try to avoid getting bogged down by them. Spend more time with people who boost your mood.Put on a happy face: Research has shown that just changing your facial muscles can set off different physiological changes.

It can also trigger different thoughts that affect moods of sadness, happiness and anger. So when we put on a happy face in times of adversity, we are actually changing our neurohormone levels and they change our moods. So if you can't laugh, smile. And if you can't smile, fake it.

Avoid negative humour: Not all humour is positive and healthy. Watch out for scorn, sarcasm, ridicule and contempt and inappropriate humour. And don't joke about people's names. They have to live with them. It is important to be sensitive to each occasion and know what humour really helps.

Humour therapy

"The art of medicine consists of keeping the patient amused while nature heals the disease." Chances are that you have never been in a hospital with a humour programme. If ever there are two things that don't go together, it is humour and hospitals.

The last decade has seen a revolution in healthcare as more and more hospitals become convinced of the therapeutic power of humour. Patients increasingly demand more personalised relationships with caregivers and humour helps establish it.

The best-known approach to bringing humour and laughter to the hospital settings is the use of clowns. Another common approach is to create a humour cart. This can be wheeled into the patient's rooms and has funny audio and videotapes, books of cartoons, games and funny props.

A few hospitals have entire rooms devoted to fun and humour for ambulatory patients. One of the first humour rooms was established at St. Joseph's hospital in Houston, the U.S.

Humour can be a powerful medicine and laughter can be contagious. It's reassuring in these days of deadly epidemics and sometimes painful, expensive medical treatments that laughter is cheap and effective. And the only side effect is pleasure.

The Hindu


Scans of pregnant women on the rise

Should you get scanned when you are pregnant? Pregnant women are exposed to twice the amount of radiation from medical scans as they were a decade ago, a new study has found.

Although the total amount of radiation exposure to pregnant women is still relatively low, the doubling effect in just a decade is the latest indicator that medical scans are exposing patients to record amounts of ionizing radiation, a type of radiation that can alter cells and lead to health risks, including cancer.

Researchers from Brown University's Warren Alpert Medical School looked at the use of several imaging techniques that can expose a patient to ionizing radiation, including nuclear medicine exams, CT scans and plain-film X-rays.

They studied more than 3,200 patients who had received scans from 1997 to 2006, some of whom were pregnant. The investigators found that during this time, the number of imaging studies that would expose pregnant women to radiation increased by 121 percent. The findings are being presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.

The greatest increases were in the number of CT scans performed, although such scans aren't routinely done during pregnancy. The most common scan performed during pregnancy, an abdominal ultrasound, does not expose the patient or fetus to ionizing radiation. The data showed that the use of scanning tests is increasing far more rapidly than the number of deliveries, which rose only 7 percent during the period.

Earlier this year, a government study found that the per-capita dose of potentially hazardous ionizing radiation from clinical imaging exams in the United States increased almost 600 percent in the last 25 years. The use of CT scans in particular is on the rise, jumping to 62 million in 2006, from 3 million in 1980. CT scans expose patients to far more radiation than standard X-rays.

The notion that pregnant women are also being scanned at an increasing rate is even more troubling, given that exposure to excess radiation can severely damage a developing fetus.

Some of the rise is due to the fact that better technology is now available to diagnose abnormalities, said Dr. Elizabeth Lazarus, assistant professor of diagnostic imaging at Brown. She added that hospitals and insurers also want to make fast diagnoses to shorten hospital stays and improve care, which may prompt doctors to order scans more often.

In some cases the benefits of a scan to both mother and baby far outweigh the risks, but the latest data suggest doctors are not always being circumspect before ordering scans of pregnant women.

"I want to assure patients that CT can be a safe, effective test for pregnant patients," said Dr. Lazarus. However, there are alternatives that should at least be explored. Pregnant patients should ask their doctors about other imaging or diagnostic tests that may not expose the fetus to radiation.

The New York Times


Simple measures 'may thwart flu'

Simple physical measures, such as handwashing and wearing masks, could play a key role in blocking the spread of a flu pandemic, say researchers.

The UK government is doubling its stockpile of antiviral medicines in preparation for any future pandemic.

But researchers believe simple, low- cost physical measures should be given higher priority.

The study, led by Australia's Bond University, features online in the British Medical Journal.

Scientists believe a flu pandemic is inevitable at some point in the future. There are also concerns about the spread of potentially fatal respiratory diseases such as Sars. There is mounting evidence to suggest the use of vaccines and antiviral drugs will be insufficient to interrupt the spread of flu.

The latest research examined 51 studies on the effect of simple physical measures on preventing respiratory infections. Several of the studies focused specifically on the Sars outbreak in South-East Asia in 2003.

The researchers found handwashing and wearing masks, and gloves and gowns all had a positive effect - and were even more effective when combined. The researchers concluded that, in combination with measures such as isolation of infected patients, they could potentially provide an important defence against a pandemic.

They argue that national governments should carry out more research into their use. Researcher Dr. Tom Jefferson said: "Worried about the flu? Then we have some good news for you.

"Wash your hands, and if it is a really bad epidemic avoid contact with people and keep your distance. You may even consider wearing paper masks and disposable gloves. They work.

"Soap and water is cheap and if you come from a poor country it could save your life or your baby's life."

He said: "Because pandemic flu is such a potentially catastrophic event, governments worldwide should have commissioned such a review many years ago and not have left it to the academic community to take the lead."

The Catch It, Bin It, Kill It campaign emphasises the need to cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough and sneeze, dispose of the tissue as soon as possible after use, and clean your hands at the first available opportunity.

BBC NEWS

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