Over the many years of my medical practice, a phrase I heard countless times was "it hurts so good". I used deep pressure in my massage and physiotherapy sessions, and often patient's would encounter the pain of pressure and the pressure had net gain of releasing tension, and helping spinal manipulation. In 1989 and 90, I taught two semester's of the course "Physiotherapy. The text started with chapter one being entirely on pain; anatomy, physiology, neurology and the concept of pain.o,
On the scale of one to ten, an itch is the smallest pain signal to the brain, followed by a tickle as number two. So tickling provokes a neurologic response, that has to be defined as pain. Always subjective, as pain tolerance cannot be measured in the laboratory and is dependent primarily on subjective reporting.
So, if tickling is pain, then standup must also be a painful phenomenon, with laughter acting as an antidote to the retention of pain and upset. Funny, I never thought of laughter as a "counter-irritant", a historical term for plant medicine that works by irritating or provoking the body's innate healing responses. Does going to a comedy club, or a funny movie mean that we are intentionally harming ourselves? No pain, no gain was a 50's, 60's mantra of Vince Lombardi, and does recognize that exercise builds muscle's by injuring muscles and repairing them with greater strength. So, next time you have a tickle, a chuckle or a deep belly laugh, realize that for laughter to be the best medicine, it must provoke us, and challenge us meet the task of the moment.
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