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Katherine Puckett, Ph.D.
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VIDEO: Katherine Puckett, Ph.D. - How Can Laughter Therapy Help A Patient Fight Cancer?

Katherine Puckett, Ph.D. shares how laughter therapy helps women fight their cancer battle.

Katherine Puckett, Ph.D.:
The way we offer laughter therapy at Cancer Treatment Centers of America is to provide a laughter club. It’s a time when people can come together to laugh with each other, not at each other, not based on comedy or humor, but based on silly, goofy laughter exercises that we do together. We practice laughter sounds, "hee-hee, haa-haa and ho-ho," as silly as it sounds, and then we do laughter exercises using those sounds.

Why do we do this? Two main reasons; number one, laughter is a great stress-buster. You might think, "What are you doing offering laughter therapy in a cancer treatment hospital?" but that’s exactly why we’re doing it, because cancer is stressful to patients and their families, and we all need a break from the hard stuff, and laughter gives us a chance to take that break.

Secondly, it has a lot of health benefits, that’s good for the heart, the circulation. It releases endorphins so it can help with physical pain; it circulates more oxygen through the body. I’ve had people say to me coming out of laughter club, “I really didn’t even think about cancer in last hour,” or, “My headache’s gone,” or, “Boy, I am going to take that out and share that with my family. We’re going to start laughing together. We kind of had forgotten to do that, it’s been so hard.”

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