Laughter is the best medicine

When we consider a situation as comical, the brain sends a series of impulses that make us start laughing in just one second. It releases endorphins (neurotransmitters associated to pleasure) and dopamine, which is known as the “the hormone of happiness”. 

Endorphins works in many ways. On one side, they neutralise cortisol, the stress hormone. This makes our anxiety levels to go down, improve our mood and a feeling of positivity arises. On the other side, endorphins are analgesic and contribute to reduce pain and, thus, they help us feeling better.

There is no doubt that laughter, in addition to helping us feeling emotionally better, also has a positive impact from a social point of view. Laughing with family, friends, coworkers... makes interpersonal bonds stronger and improves relationships. Laughing is common to every culture and serves as an interconnexion. 

It also has important physical benefits for the organism. When we laugh: 

• We strengthen a good number of muscles, including those in the abdomen and those around the heart. When laughing out loud, our muscles relax and contract, toning up.
• We burn calories. Giggling causes a similar effect on our body to that of doing exercise. According to some studies, five minutes of laughing are the same as 45 minutes of moderate physical activity.
• It helps boosting the immune system. Endorphins get release and help reduce anxiety and stress. 
• We take care of our hearts. Thanks to laughter, heartbeat gets faster, blood flow increases and blood pressure decreases. Thus, benefiting our cardiovascular health.
• Moreover, the organism’s oxygenation gets increased, affecting the brain’s oxygen supply and activates our memory and wakes us up.
• According to the Spanish Neurology Society, “some studies even confirm that beaming people have 40% less heart disorders and live four and half years more on average”.

The therapeutic use of humour.

Laughter therapy is a technique that consists on creating different situations in which laughter is used to release physical and emotional frictions, taking advantage of the therapeutic benefits of laughter. It is used in some hospitals and many companies arrange laughter therapy sessions for their employees and executives to release frictions and improving health and mood, all in order to increase productivity.

Pathological laughter

But laughter is no laughing matter. It can be linked to diseases or be a symptom that something is not going well. There exist a nervous laughter that is caused by stress and tension. There is also the syndrome of pathological laughter. It is the kind of laughter that happens without an apparent reason, specific stimuli or either that laughter is uncontrolled and disproportionated. It also may be a symptom of other illnesses such as Angelman syndrome, dementia, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), schizophrenia...

Did you know that there’s a science that studies laughter and its benefits? It is called gelotology (from the Greek gelos, laughter). It was developed by the American psychiatrist William F. Fry. in the 1960. He started studying the effects of laughter in the body from a psychological and physiological point of view.