Humor
Laughter is the Best Medicine
Well, it’s sure a good one if not the best. You know where I often get ideas for blog posts about happiness? I go through my photos looking for happy moments. Here’s one. That’s my nephew Dylan and his wife, Taelor. We are at my niece’s engagement party. A thing happened and Taelor is laughing so hard she can hardly contain herself. The cry-laugh.
It’s a private joke, haha, but that picture brings me right back to that very happy and funny moment. I can still hear them laughing while looking at that picture, and there’s something about Taelor’s laughter that really cracks me up. So much fun. A very funny story. You know, I don’t really remember the exact details of the story even, but it sure was funny.
10 Reasons Why Laughter is the Best Medicine
- Stress Reduction: Laughter triggers the release of endorphins, the body’s natural feel-good chemicals, promoting an immediate reduction in stress.
- Immune System Boost: The positive impact of laughter on the immune system has been documented, with increased immune cell activity and a more robust defense against illness.
- Cardiovascular Health: Laughter can improve blood flow and increase the function of blood vessels, contributing to better cardiovascular health.
- Pain Relief: Laughter has been shown to elevate the pain threshold, providing a natural form of pain relief by increasing the body’s pain tolerance.
- Muscle Relaxation: The act of laughing engages various muscle groups, leading to muscle relaxation and a release of tension, particularly in the face, neck, and shoulders.
- Improved Mood: Laughter promotes the release of serotonin and dopamine, neurotransmitters associated with happiness and mood elevation.
- Enhanced Lung Function: Laughter involves deep breathing, which can improve lung capacity and increase oxygen intake, benefiting respiratory health.
- Social Connection: Shared laughter fosters social bonding and strengthens relationships, promoting a sense of connection and community.
- Cognitive Benefits: Laughter stimulates brain activity and creativity, enhancing cognitive function and promoting a positive mindset.
- Natural Anti-Depressant: The mood-lifting effects of laughter make it a natural and accessible anti-depressant, offering emotional well-being without side effects.
How Funny Are You?
What the Experts Say
A little advice from the Mayo Clinic about laughter and having a sense of humor. “Negative thoughts manifest into chemical reactions that can affect your body by bringing more stress into your system and decreasing your immunity. By contrast, positive thoughts can actually release neuropeptides that help fight stress and potentially more-serious illnesses.” In the short term, laughing stimulates organs due to increased intake of oxygen, activates and releases your stress response, and stimulates circulation and muscle relaxation.
Norwegian researchers published a 15-year study on laughter in April 2016. The study involved 53,556 men and women in Norway and analyzed the cognitive and components of humor when associated with specific conditions and death. The findings? Women with a strong sense of humor lived longer. They were 73% less likely to die from heart disease and 83% less likely to die from infection. In men, the results were more related to infection, with 74% less risk of death in men with high scores in humor. More data that substantiates this idea that laughter is the best medicine.
Anatomy of an Illness. Norman Cousins famously approached the idea of how humor heals when he wrote about how he recovered from ankylosing spondylitis and said this, “I made the joyous discovery that 10 minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep,” he wrote. Against all odds, Cousins recovered from his disease and went on to join the faculty at UCLA as a researcher and professor of medical humanities promoting the healing properties of laughter and positive thinking. He truly believed that laughter is the best medicine and lived to tell about it.
Why We Laugh
Laughter Yoga Class
Have you heard of laughter yoga? Well, I think if there is one thing I’ve learned about happiness, and its foe, depression, is that you can do rather simple things to feel happier in pretty short order. I don’t mean to make light of clinical depression (been there, done that), but you can at the very least improve your vibration at any time. I selected this course on laughter yoga because you can finish it in a little over an hour and there’s a 40-day challenge included and a supported Facebook community. Take the Laughter Yoga Class.
On the Other Hand
Can laughing be harmful? In Laughing Too Much Can Kill You, two pharmacologists reported that intense laughter can trigger fainting, asthma exacerbation, hernias, headaches, jaw dislocation, and arrhythmias. So, maybe laughing isn’t just a quick fix of ailments, but there is no denying that it makes us feel better!
Shoba Sreenivasan, Ph.D., and Linda E. Weinberger, Ph.D., wrote in “Laughter Can Be a Double-Edged Sword,” laughter should not be directed at others, generally, in a hurtful way, be too aggressive, or meant to hurt another, be mocking, humiliating, or bullying. Also, we should be aware of that some are quite sensitive to being laughed at, a syndrome called “gelotophobia,” a debilitating fear of being laughed at.
Conclusion
In a world where we are bombarded with an onslaught of information and stimuli, remember that laughter is the best medicine and provides many ways to feel refreshed. The positive effects of laughter on our mental health can be huge. Research has shown that laughter can make us feel better and help relieve stress, blood pressure, pain tolerance, even improve our mood!
Laughter is the best medicine, and it’s free! It doesn’t matter if you think something’s funny or not. Laughing actually makes us feel better because of chemicals that are released in our brain when we laugh—it gives us an endorphin boost. And laughter can be contagious too, so try to find humor in your daily life whenever possible.
Resources
Mayo Clinic
15-year study on laughter in April 2016
Anatomy of an Illness
Laughing Too Much Can Kill You
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