by Yvonne Donlon

Created on: October 18, 2009   Last Updated: October 19, 2009

How does one get to a place where they even entertain the question "can you live without humor"? We may as well ask if we can live without breath.

Laughter, and its healing and quality of life improving aspects, have been put through many studies and experiments over the years. I've often wondered what the hypotheses are behind these studies - to suggest laughter, and therefore humor, are unimportant? - to suggest that they are something best not lived without?

I recently watched a clip of a laughing baby on YouTube. The only thing happening on this clip, other than the insatiable laughter of a child less than one year old, was the occasional appearance of a dog being fed treats. The adult, off camera, was throwing treats to the dog, also mostly off camera. The child, sitting on the floor between the dog and the treat thrower, was in the center of the camera. The child laughed out loud, and with great enjoyment, each time the adult threw a treat to the waiting dog. Every time. The video goes on for nearly two minutes, and not once does the child find the simple act of giving treats to a dog anything other than absolutely hilarious. The child does not get bored and roll his/her eyes to suggest it was funny for a minute, but now, well, it's just boring. In just watching it, I too found it nothing short of the best medicine in the world.

After seeing that video, I watched it every morning before I began writing for the day. One minute and 47 seconds of unabashed laughter, between the child in the video and me, is without doubt the greatest source of inspiration and energy. After a week of viewing this video each morning, endorphins were shooting through my writing room in anticipation a good ten minutes before I even got there to start the video. They were quickly merged with my own endorphins upon my hitting play to start the video yet again.

The result of all the studies performed to determine what the heck that noise is, what causes it, where it comes from and what are its benefits, have determined, perhaps to the chagrin of any scientists who wished to debunk humor as a viable emotion and laughter as a positive reaction to humor, that humor has great healing qualities. Good things like endorphins and neuro-transmitters are released in the wake of something quite humorous. Stress hormones, like cortisol and adrenalin, run and hide like the scientist who came to the humor experiment wanting only to prove it doesn't matter a whit.

I still watch the child laughing video each morning. Because it makes me laugh. Because it wakes up my mental and creative processes, and because it makes me laugh. And, because, to me it is undeniable proof that humor and laughter are as much a part of our makeup as are our heart and lungs. It is not like the appendix or the gall bladder, either of which can be removed from our bodies with little overall change in the body's makeup. No. Humor cannot be removed without a viable transplant.

Even in text language, there is no shorthand text of SU - sobbing uncontrollably. But there is, and has been since the infancy of instant messaging and text, an LOL, to be followed by LMAO, and ROFLMAO. Laughter is good for the body, for the mind, and for the soul. Can you live without humor? NIMY.

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