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Healthy Aging By Sharon Johnson We could all use a chuckle, giggle or snort now I have been thinking about laughter lately. There has not been enough of it in my life since Sept. 11. I carry around this feeling of absent joy. Therefore, when I heard an 88-year-old woman giggle this week, it lightened my heart. It was in response to a gentleman friend spying her in curlers under a hair dryer. He said, "You look beautiful." She responded with a song-like laugh. What made me laugh unexpectedly was the bumper sticker on the back of an aging Chevy. It said, "Fat People Are Hard to Kidnap." My husband did not think the bumper sticker was funny, but he smiled when I put a hot pad in the refrigerator. Vanderbilt University recently studied laughter and found women chuckle and giggle, and men grunt and snort. The study suggested that men and women laugh differently - and at different things. Maybe that's true. What I am in search of must be a long, slow, rolling chuckle. Actually, I think we could all use a few chuckles, giggles or snorts right about now. In my mission to laugh long and hard, I turn to the research. I learn that psychologists at Bowling Green University have discovered that lab rats "giggle playfully" when tickled under their little armpits. The researchers (clearly serious about this humor business) recognize that people may scoff at such studies, but they feel strongly about their mission to track "the biological origins of joy." I continued my research and went to Amazon.com to try to find the best reference on the biological origins of joy. It looked like it might be a book titled "Humor and Laughter: Theory Research and Applications." It was out of print, but I could order it used for a price the company could not quote me until after it located the book - and someone who might want to sell it to me - and that would take about eight weeks. In light of my somewhat desperate and immediate need for a little levity, I actually found the process almost funny. (Giggling rodents didn't do it for me.) As long as I was on the Amazon Web site, I kept looking, and ultimately identified a book whose colorful cover prompted a smile. The book is titled, "Compassionate Laughter, Jest for Your Health." The author is a registered-nurse-turned-clown. Patty Wooten is an international speaker on the benefits of laughter and laughter's links to well-being. She apparently gives her presentations in costume, right down to wearing a round, red plastic nose. The review said the author uses "the power of playfulness and humor to relieve tension." I was determined to know more after I read that the book included stories about how prisoners of war, and terminally ill patients and their families, managed their often-impossible situations by using laughter. I sent an e-mail to the author, [email protected]. She has not responded yet. Understandable. These must be very busy times for someone who is trying to make a joyless population chuckle and, perhaps, even snort a little. I ordered the book. I asked them to rush my copy. Sharon Johnson is an assistant professor in family and community development at OSU Extension and a member of the Senior Advisory Council. Reach her at [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.