The Healing Power of Laughter: Exploring the Link Between Comedy and Better Health

Deb Krier 0:01

Hey there, lifter uppers! I'm Deb Creer, the co-host of Cancer and Comedy, where our mission is to heal cancer-impacted people through hope and humor-something we like to call turning the grim into a grin. Well, today on Cancer and Comedy, we're going to talk about the healing power of laughter and explore the link between comedy and better health. Well, now here is the host of Cancer and Comedy, Doctor Brad Miller.

Dr. Brad Miller 0:25

Hey, Deb, good to be with you and all the lifter-uppers here. Those are people who have decided they're not going to be put down by cancer or any other adversity, and they're going to lift themselves up and help lift others up. And that's what we're here to do. Deb and I are here on the Cancer Comedy Podcast. We talk about changing your grim into a grin, and that is what we want people to know: if you have some sort of adversity in life, that's not the end of the story. That's just a part of your story, and you can get on with your life. And we like to call it living your life to the fullest with hope and humor. We love hope because we aspire to greater things to come, and humor because it sets the tone for how we do that. And so we tell stories of people who've overcome cancer and other adversities, and we also have our own stories to tell about how Deb and I have overcome cancer ourselves. And we like to do that here in our community as we build a community of like-minded people who are not done with living yet here at the cancerandcomedy.com/follow. So please be a part of the community, Deb. I got a couple of bad dad jokes for you today. You ready for

Deb Krier 1:34

them? I'm ready.

Dr. Brad Miller 1:35

All right, here we go, Deb. I you know I really last night I slept like a log, and I woke up in the fireplace.

Deb Krier 1:45

Oh no!

Dr. Brad Miller 1:50

Did you hear about the new broom coming out?

Deb Krier 1:53

No,

Dr. Brad Miller 1:54

it's sweeping the nation.

Deb Krier 1:56

Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! I love it! I love it! Well, you know, following our conversation today, you definitely want to stick around because we're going to have another one of Dr. Brad's bad jokes of the day. But then, of course, we have the very important faith it or break it segment. Well, as mentioned, we would love for you to be part of our cancer and comedy community, where together we crush cancer with a message of how to cope with hope and humor. Please follow Cancer and Comedy at cancerandcomedy.com/follow.

Dr. Brad Miller 2:32

Hey Deb, had an interesting experience, a really cool birthday party a couple weeks ago that I went to for my granddaughter, and my granddaughter is turned six years old. Call that as her name, and she is just one fired up little girl. She was fired up about her birthday. It was, you know, we had all kinds of unicorns everywhere as a unicorn theme, and all this kind of good stuff. And it was a great thing. And my daughter had arranged the party to be the weekend before I was having surgery because she it was my granddaughter's birthday was actually falling near my surgery date, and so she set that up, and I thought it was nice of her to do this. She didn't really have to do that, my daughter. I mean, but she they really wanted me there, and my wife and that whole family was together to celebrate Collette's sixth birthday because she's really fired up, fired up about it. Well, here the and she is a little girl who likes to get your face, tell you what's what, and kind of she kind of she says she's a delightful little girl, but she's bossy. You ever been around a bossy little girl?

Deb Krier 3:43

Yeah,

Dr. Brad Miller 3:44

I got a feeling you may have a little bit of that trait in you once for a while, but she is very bossy, very single minded. If she wants you to do something or wants to do something, she wants to do it and do it right now. Right. So we get we get to their house and she grabs me, Grandpa. Let's go. Okay, okay, here we go. We and we went up upstairs to her room, and I'll be doggone. She sat me down in her little vanity chair and says, "Grandpa, we're doing a makeover. And so I spent about I spent about 20 minutes doing a makeover, and of course I, being the guy. Guy, I said, "Well, we're going to do this. We're going to film it. So I put my phone up on the, propped it up, and I filmed the whole thing. And I tell you, Deb, she did a big time makeover on me. And I, people who've seen me know, I have a relatively full beard. She put all kinds of little twisties in my beard and twist twisties in my hair, rouge and lip gloss, fingernail polish, different ties on the hair, and but the killer thing, Deb, was she decided that Grandpa didn't have enough sprinkles, and so I tell you that girl, little girl, loaded me up with sprinkles all over my face and beard and every place. I was a sprinkly grandpa. That that was for sure, and I just couldn't help it. And she was delighted. And then her nine year old sister got involved a little bit, and that was even more fun because she had to she had had her do two bits with to her points. She had her fashion points that she wanted to make, and so we did that. I had a great time. Then so they we everybody's getting ready for this birthday luncheon cake and everything. So I was presented to the rest of the group, you know, as a beautiful, as the beautiful sparkly grandpa. It was just a lot of fun. But what I want to have fun with Deb is that I know I've got that video. It's about a 15 minute video, and I shared it with my daughter a little bit already. But when she has, she had her sixth birthday. When she has about her 16th birthday, if I'm still around to enjoy it, I'm going to break that video out and just whatever the situation is, I'm going to have some fun with it. But it was just-it's already led to some good laughs, but it can anticipate some other good laughs. And you know what else it did? It also helped me prepare for this surgery. It got my mind off that for a little while, and we had some fun with the family. And so, you sent my way a couple weeks ago an article from CNN online CNN from a guy named Don Rito R I D D E L L, and he's his this article was very interesting, I thought, and I read it, and I thought, well, you know, this this could be a good thing for us to talk about. Is basically, can cancer make you healthier? And he talked about some of his experiences, including his own kids taking dumb videos of him like plucking those hairs and things on things like that. So he talked about his experiences, how cancer can make you healthier, and his and from his observations. But I'd like to get your take on this article a little bit, or maybe something else that we've talked about here in terms of how you could take sometimes the mundane things, and they can be a moment that can be delightful and funny.

Deb Krier 7:00

Right. Well, you know, obviously, we love this premise because the podcast is called "Cancer in Comedy. You know, but it is. I think so many people, when we're faced with a very serious diagnosis, we get very serious because we're afraid. We're you know traumatized. We're our brains have shorted out, all of those various things, but when we are able to laugh, it just makes it seem so much better, you know. And then, of course, there are the obvious health benefits. But you know, one of the things that I love is you know you are a minister, a pastor, and you know it was in the Bible first about the importance of laughter. So talk to us a little bit more about that.

Dr. Brad Miller 7:47

Well, one of the keys verses of Scripture that we that we use and kind of what got me interested in this whole area of therapeutic in the first place is from Proverbs, the book of Proverbs in the Bible, the Old Testament Bible, Proverbs 1722 that a cheerful heart is good medicine, but a dried up spirit crushes the bones, and so that scripture was intramural to me about kind of attitude towards how you deal with things, and so because almost everybody has a crushed spirit at one time or another through, and cancer is certainly one of the things that that can do that, but the biblical teaching here in Proverbs is basically words of wisdom. If you want a wise word, it's this, and it leans into this whole thing about a cheerful heart is good medicine, and certainly other people and other walks of life, writers and doctors and other people have leaned into this too. That having a good attitude, a positive, even a laughter can help you to do that. And it has to do not only your physical health, has to do with your mental health, your emotional health, your relational health, and all that type of thing. And I think one of the things that that Riddle does in his article, as he points out, a few of these things. He's a sports writer, basically. He's talking about how there is these things to talk about. How, yeah, we've talked about it before, but I think it bears mentioning if you reduce the stress. There's lots of studies reduces stress by 30% or more, and the good hormones go up and the bad hormones go down and things like that, and there is implications for how you manage stress. For instance, with laughter, and Redover mentions that in his article, and I just think it's worth mentioning that that is. I know for that little while when I was with my granddaughter, we was laughing and giggling, having a big time. There's no time for, you know, whatever, you know,

Deb Krier 9:44

right?

Dr. Brad Miller 9:44

Whether even if in her world, if she got in trouble for not cleaning her room an hour or two before we got there, I didn't know about that, and she had, you know, right, just distracted from that. In my case, I'm not thinking about the surgery I had upcoming. I was thinking about being delighted. In her, so there's a part of that laughter that's just kind of an involuntary physical response to the situations, but it can also be kind of built into your life if you let it to. If you allow things to strike you funny, they will.

Right, right. You know, and let's be honest, an awful lot of what we have gone through is funny. I mean, you know, sometimes in a gallows humor type of way, right? But other things, you know, I remember one of the times one of my and I have you know a plethora of incisions, and one of them is jagged. I mean, it is just this you know uppy downy. And I asked my surgeon, I said, "What you couldn't draw a straight line, and you know, and he like a

connect the dots thing or whatever. Yeah,

I was like, seriously, can you not park your car straight either? I mean, you know, all of those things, and I mean, we were just laughing. We came up with every you know analogy that you possibly can have with the fact that he couldn't draw a straight line. Now there was actually a reason for it, you know. He followed the way the muscles were going, yeah. And so there was true, but yeah, I'm like, what? You could not draw a straight line, you know, and everybody laughed, you know, when I had my thyroid removed, you know, that that incision is about four inches long. I mean, it's you know a good size incision, and my surgeon, who I love dearly, tells me, you know, perfectly straight face, I will put the incision in one of the wrinkles in your neck, you know, and so it won't show. And I went, thank you, and you know, and it was like, oh, I'm really glad that I'm old, and so you can hide my incision that way. And of course, you know anybody else might have. You, I found it funny. Obviously, I wouldn't still be talking about it. But yeah, I mean, you, you. I always come back to the line from Mash. We laugh to keep ourselves from crying.

Yes,

and I think that is so true. Now tears are good. We know that tears are good, but you know if we can laugh about it, it's just so much better.

And one of things about I come to my granddaughters quite a bit, but several of my surgeries have been anthroposcopic. So the result of those, I have these got six different scars in my belly area that are puncture areas, basically. So I just say, "Hey, you want to see my seven belly buttons? And I lift up my room a little bit. There's my seven belly underneath. They go, "Ooh, they go, ooh, gross, but they laugh too. You know that kind of stuff. But I just think there's important some important things to be said here. How this impacts our attitude. Impacts how we deal with other people. And one of the things that said in this article that I thought was interesting: it's impossible to throw a punch while you're laughing. Right? You know, it can diffuse anger. It can diffuse other bad things too, as well. And I think that's important. One of the things that the author gets into he interviews a couple of comedians who were from local comedy clubs I think in Atlanta area believe and that's where you're at so but I don't just tell a little bit about what you thought about some of the observations that the author of this article had about talking to comedians and others who that's part of their life

right well I got a kick out of the stories in the article that talked about the fact that people who had been having trouble conceiving,

yes,

still went home, or in one case to the parking lot, and honestly, had been laughing so much, whatever was going on with the trouble with conceiving was eliminated, and so they showed him pictures of the babies. Now, I mean, you know, obviously there are sometimes where you can laugh all you want and things aren't going to happen, but you know, sometimes it's just a matter of when you laugh, you relax, and you know, and it's funny because it really does decrease your blood pressure, you know. It's not right then because you're laughing, so your blood pressure is probably going to go up. But overall, it decreases your blood pressure, and so you know when you go and laugh, you know what, and especially at a comedy club, right? It's you know you're really going to have that that decrease in stress and decrease in pressure, and you know what? I it didn't say in the article if they named the babies, that would have been really funny, right? Because

they think if they were shoemakers, so maybe there are a lot of shoe, maybe going to be whatever. But he said he apparently had a character with like the suave ladies man kind of a guy, and it was over the Love Master that that was there. So I may yeah who knows but that that's funny. And then but he talked about another comedian and the screenwriter named Michael Goldberg who had was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2001 and basically given three months to live, but he threw. Himself into finding ways for helping comedy to do help him to deal with this through not only his writing but through comedy clubs and so on and so instead of concerts and comedy shows and jokes and comedy presentations all kinds of things. He just made laughter part of his life, and he said, "If we're only concerned the misery cancer protocols and methodologies, that's a miserable experience, and it doesn't inspire people to keep undergoing their healing journey. And he went on to throw himself instead into laughter and to positive things, and he then created a series, and he lived 15 years longer than he was supposed to live, and that was a part of what this guy Schumacher did. And he developed some comedy workshops that included this healing element into it, kind of a recharge, a reclamation of your life. That are that are some things like this that you can't be angry and oppressed or have other you know the feelings to really accept bliss while you're laughing, and laughter has its own space. So I don't know. Just any other thoughts about that type of thing?

Well, I mean, you know, we've talked in the past about laughter therapy, laughter yoga, you know, and obviously the benefits of that. And even if you are fake laughing, somehow your brain doesn't catch that you're going oh right, and so you get those benefits of laughing, you know, and it really is hard to be sad. You can't be sad if you're laughing. Now you know there there's what the saying? Tears of a clown.

Yeah.

Um. You know. But if it if it's a true laugh or even a giggle, a chortle. You know, whatever we want to call it, it's hard to be grumpy, cranky, whatever when you are laughing. Um. You know. And you know, I love hearing the stories about your granddaughters because you know a child's laughter. There's just something about that that is you know you can't be grumpy when a child is laughing.

Yeah, that is so true. And you know you go back to some of the biblical things. Jesus talked about bringing the children around and laughing and so on. That that was a good a good thing. They we mentioned something I just want to touch on here in this article. It was mentioned something called laugh baths, which I think I've heard of before, but it was reintroduced to this concept here, and it has something to do with you. Like some people talk about having music and tones, you know, like a like a like a gong and other things are used for relaxation for people. There are certain therapeutic things people do, but they involve that involve sound, sound waves, and so on.

Right,

and he's talking about how a laugh bath can be a part of that, where you kind of put yourself around a laughing environment and then kind of make be intentional in your laughing, and that kind of goes what you're talking about. Laughter yoga is another form of that, and I just I think that's an important thing to do. That attitude to kind of look for the fun things, and it can help. Did you have any thoughts about that whole thing about oh various technology, various therapeutic approaches to this.

Yeah, yeah. I think we definitely, as you mentioned, should look for ways to laugh. You know, if you are continually looking for the dark side, then it's going to affect everything. Um, you know, and I might have shared this story before about my mother. Uh, she has, you know, she's been gone about two and a half years, but I had people contact me because they were very concerned. She was cranky, cranky, mad, cranky, mad. I mean, just you know, nobody wanted to be around her, and she solved this problem on her own, which I was very proud that that she did this. So she recognized that that there was something going on. She had you know the major network news on 24 hours a day.

The gloom, the doom. You know, sky is falling. All of those things, and I mean, she just it was you know. Except when she was sleeping, she had that on her TV, and it doesn't matter which program it was. They're all the sky is falling. You know, the world is coming to an end, and then she figured out that was making her cranky, and so she put herself on a diet. And I thought this was the funniest thing. So she would listen to her local news first thing in the morning, and then at noon. That way, she knew what was going on locally, what was the weather, you know, all of those various things,

yeah,

and then she would only listen to the major broadcast news for an hour in the evening. That was it, you know. And of course, it's the same stories over and over. If you listen for an hour, you've pretty much got everything. But so she would only listen for an hour, and the rest of the time, she either had on music or the whole. Channel, and the change in her disposition was amazing. You know, she went from being cranky and angry at everything back to being this person you wanted to be around. You know, and I was just it was it really was incredible the difference that it made to say okay, I'm going to remove myself from what a lot of people would call a toxic environment, and only you know have things that that make me happy.

Well, I think it certainly kind of changed the nature of your relationship with your mom. You know, I know that you had your ups and downs with her through your whole life, but towards the end, you were just in a relatively good place. Is that fair? And then I think this change of disposition is a huge point here, because you know how you approach things does matter. In fact, the author here of this article makes the point about how he interviewed some of the interviewed the one of the Jamie Bendell who owns the comedy club there in Atlanta, who said he believes that comedy acts as a social glue that helps bring together divided people. Now I think that can't be the case. Of course, there are certain comedians who play upon the divisions and that kind of stuff, and that's one thing. But as many people are looking to bring people together, you know, and I think that that's a good thing. And laughter has a space for that. He the interview or the interview about the comedy club owner because as when everyone is laughing at a comedy club, nobody knows who's voted for who. Or taking to the extreme, it's very hard to both laugh and throw a punch, as we said earlier. People facing their toughest hours, the first signs that things are going to get better is when laughter comes back, and we've seen that in hospital rooms. We've seen that in relationships. If laughter, if you can laugh with somebody, then you can have a rapport, a relationship that is that's important, and

right.

And I think that's what we're trying to do here. You know, we're trying to find a place for people to do justice, to have a place to get better by being better and having some laughter in their in their life, and it also shows up in places. You know, this is not just you and I just kind of gabbing about it. CNN and other, you know, outlets. You know, I'm a part of an organization that teaches therapeutic humor as an actual, you know, in medical schools and things like this now, and as a part of the process of healing and wholeness. That laughter, laughing can be a way of making you healthier. And you know, one of the things that the questions of CNN author said something here. The when he asked the question, "Can laughing make you healthier? The first question, if you want to get healthier, first one is to ask your oncologist because it's the medical part, and then the second thing is to ask your granddaughters if you're making them laugh or they make you laugh.

Right. Then

that that's a that's a good thing too. I just don't think we'd have to remain. You know, my imagery I often have is I at one point was the grumpy old man because I was stuck in a funk about my situations, and I chose you know change of change of outlook as you just said a minute ago. Chose to be kind of the happier, fun grandpa to my granddaughters, but hopefully to others I can be present more of a pleasant disposition and just be more fun to be to be around rather than the you know you there's moments for seriousness, there's moments for thinking and everything else like that, but if you can basically have a pleasant disposition, you're more likable yourself, and you're more easy to get to. Right. Oh

yeah. I mean, we don't want to be around the grumpy cranky, you know. And it's one of one of my goals. Anytime I see one of my care team, is to make them laugh. You know, how can I make them laugh? And I have had you know, like when I was in the hospital, I was in the hospital for seven weeks at one point, and I noticed they'd come hang out in my room. You know, some of my care team. I was like, and I, you know, I thought, okay, they're hiding from somebody, right, or whatever. And I, so I finally asked the charge nurse because she would come in and do her schedule for the next day. She'd just come in and she would sit there, and she would do her schedule for the next day, as opposed to sitting in her office or whatever. And I finally said, "Why are you here? And she said, "Because it's fun in here.

I mean, and I was very seriously ill, but it was still how can we enjoy life, you know, and again, whatever time you have, do you want to spend it being grumpy or do you want to spend it being happy?

Yeah, and I think it and it doesn't take a whole lot of effort if you just think it through a little bit. Just even this morning, I had a checkup with my regular general doctor after the surgery I had a couple weeks ago. This was it. And I went to check in with a young woman at the desk, and she said, "You know, who something to affect you know what they always say? You know, what are you here for today? And I said, "I'm here to pick up my laundry, and you got it ready for me. And she says, "Oh, it's you again. So she kind of, she kind of, she kind of knew I was coming. So we had some fun with that, and then and you can just have a bit. And even with my doctor, when I met with him, we had some serious things to talk about. But we also talked. He is happens to be the team doctor for the Indiana Pacers team, and we talked about the Pacers for a little bit, and that lightened up the load a little bit as well. You choose how you approach things. Really, is what it talks about here. To go back to kind of final thought for me, at least, to go back to that Proverbs thing that a cheerful heart is good medicine is a theme here. Because the opposite is it that a crushed heart dries up the bones; it makes you, you know, a person who is in a state of misery. And I've seen this for people who are miserable, who are things are going along pretty good for him, but because they chose a miserable disposition, and I've seen people who are racked by cancer or had other bad things in their life who have a good, pleasant life because they have chosen to have a cheerful heart. So that's what I got to share today, and we're going to put links to this to the to the article here that I want to lift up again. CNN is the author's name is Don Rydell, R-I-D-D-E. We'll put links to that, and I think there's some good things to share about that. And from time to time, that's what we do here. We just kind of come across something to share about you know, something that's in the research or not in the world. And certainly, if people out there, if you hear our voices or see our images and have something you want to share, maybe an article or something you've written, or something that you've done. We'd like to hear from you as well because that's the kind of stories we like to hear as well to share them here in Cancer College.

Right, you know, and I love the fact that it was CNN that wrote this because, you know, we always think of them as being very serious. So maybe it means we need to take this seriously, right?

Indeed, take humor seriously, right?

Yes, that's it. That's it.