Laughing Is Good for Health

2012 Words9 Pages
PART B: READING COMPREHENSION (20 MARKS) Read the following articles and answer all the questions that follow. Article 1 ~ How Laughing Is Good For Your Health I. When thinking about alternative medicine, most people picture plants, crystals, needles, maybe some bugs and leeches, but few realize that jokes, humor and comedy are truly medicines, in their own right. It has long been established that optimists live longer than pessimists, but now there is some hard evidence that people with a better sense of humor also have longer and healthier lives. II. Your "stay healthy" plan should include a joke and a 20-minute comedy show, to go with the broccoli and carrots. There are now various associations and physicians specialized in the so-called therapeutic humor, who are still investigating the roles of laughter in our lives. III. Perhaps the most obvious of these roles is that related to the social life - jokes often allow people to connect and to bond, and sharing a good laughter is a good method to integrate in a team, to get along with the coworkers, neighbors and so on. This function is vital from the point of view of mental health, since it reduces loneliness and, with it, depression and other problems associated with it. IV. You don't have to be trained in stand-up comedy in order to say something funny, sometimes all you need is a change of perspective or the courage to make fun at your own expense. Humor is an invaluable asset in crisis situations, when it helps us calm down and reduce the levels of stress (and all the negative effects stress has on health). V. It is often considered that, among patients with very severe diseases, those with an upbeat approach, who are capable of making jokes about their situations, have the best chances to defeat the illness. So far, there have been no scientific studies to prove this, but the patients

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