The Best Medicine, Minus the Humor

Laughter Therapy: Plenty of Giggles But No Punch Lines

From left, Washingtonians Pav Singh, Robert Zarr, Bella Dinh-Zarr and Lorraine Wodiska laugh it up to relax and de-stress. (By Robert A. Reeder -- The Washington Post)

Ho ho. Ha ha ha.

Ho ho! Ha ha ha!

HO HO!! HA HA HA!!!

The bright yellow flier promised "a joyful after-work tuneup with therapeutic effects," and so a half-dozen stressed-out Washington types are standing in the George Washington University Center for Integrative Medicine waving their arms in the air and chanting a warm-up in this evening's "laughter therapy" class.

"Ho ho. Ha ha ha," they say, in unison.

The instructor -- a tall, angular man with somber gabardine trousers, gum-soled shoes and a crisp blue dress shirt -- smiles at his charges. Surely this is not what he had in mind? How's he going to put some juice into these mechanical guffaws?

Maybe: So the chicken walks into the library . . .

But there's no chicken joke, no guy in a bar with his dog. Not even a halfhearted knock-knock joke. No lawyers or light bulbs or blondes. There's nothing funny here.

Never mind that. Laughing is good for you. It supposedly opens your arteries, if you believe the research from the University of Maryland; boosts the immune system, according to a Loma Linda University scientist; relieves stress; teaches you how to breathe like a baby. And you don't need Dave Chappelle to achieve these benefits.

So here we are, in a roomful of people practicing mirthless laughter.

"Ho ho. Ha ha ha."

Laugh leader Siddharth Shah, who is a physician and psychotherapist, clasps his hands at his waist. He has counseled and treated humanitarian workers responding to disasters and violence, and treats patients here in his psychotherapy practice. The laugh class is one in a series of periodic sessions, which participants pay $10 to attend. He looks pretty serious.