Laughter and Longevity
Growing Older Can Be a Laughing Matter. November 24, 2004 my mother, Tulara Lee, turns 82 years of age. She is still very active and I believe it is because she has been around humor and laughter most of her life. She was 19 years old when she entered show business and has been making people laugh all these years. She still continues to speak with me on the importance of laughter. It seems comedians live longer. Comedian Milton Berle lived in to his nineties. George Burns and Bob Hope lived to one hundred. Maybe it’s because they surrounded themselves with laughter. I can’t think of any other profession where people still continue to work into their late eighties and early nineties.
According to Dr. Thomas Pearls, director of the New England Centenarian Study, those living to 100 years “handle emotional stress incredibly well.” The centenarians studied had “lost spouses, endured hardships, even survived the horrors of the holocaust. Yet they were generally optimistic and, and in most cases, funny.” He said, “They use humor all the time.”