Laughter is the Best Medicine

Laughter is the Best Medicine Definition

Laughter is the best medicine.

To laugh can lift your spirit and lessen negative feelings like anger, sadness or stress.

Laughter is the Best Medicine Examples

• Whenever I was feeling down my grandpa would make me chuckle by sticking his dentures out. I guess laughter is the best medicine.
• We should take Katy to see that new Rom-Com. I know she just lost her cat, but they do say laughter is the best medicine.

Quotes

Laughter is the best medicine – unless you’re diabetic, then insulin comes pretty high on the list.

Jasper Carrott

I think laughter is the best medicine. If you can’t laugh at yourself, then you can’t laugh at life and the silliness of it all.

David Hasselhoff

Laughter is the Best Medicine Origin

Literary Origin

The following incident comes to us thoroughly authenticated, although we are not at liberty to publish any names:

A short time since two individuals in the city of. New Haven were lying in one bedroom very sick, one with brain fever, and the other an aggravated case of mumps. They were so low that watchers were needed every night, and it was thought doubtful if the one sick of fever recovered. A gentleman was engaged to watch one night, his duty being to wake the nurse whenever it became necessary to take the medicine.

In the course of the night both watcher and nurse fell asleep. The man with the mumps lay watching the clock, and saw it was time to give the fever patient his portion. He was unable to speak aloud or to move any portion of his body except his arms, but seizing a pillow be managed to strike the watcher in the face with it. Thus, suddenly awakened, the watcher sprang from bis seat, fallen to the floor and awakening both the nurse and the fever patient. The incident struck both the sick men as very ludicrous, and they laughed most heartily at it for fifteen or twenty minutes.

When the doctor came in the morning, be found his patients vastly improved said he had never known so sudden a turn for the better, and they are now both out and well. Who says laughter is not the best medicine ?

Cleveland Morning Leader, March 1, 1861, The Power of Hearty Laughter

The earliest evidence of our idiom as we use it today is in the Cleveland Morning Leader newspaper circa 1861. It involves a story of two patients in a humorous midnight incident. After hearty laughter all around the morning after the patients appeared much healthier along with their good spirits!

Spiritual Origin

²² A merry heart doeth good like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones.

21st Century King James Bible, Proverbs 17:22

A possible origin for our idiom is a passage from The Book of Proverbs of the Old Testament Bible. The Book of Proverbs is a collection of collections. Each collection compiled at a different time and likely by different authors. These collections of proverbs and sayings share the general theme of attaining wisdom through the fear of God. They also explore philosophical issues like the meaning of life and how one should live their life.

The oldest section of The Book of Proverbs was titled These are Other Proverbs of Solomon that the Officials of King Hezekiah of Judah Copied. This collection came into creation somewhere around 700 BCE.