Rex Trulove
You’ve probably heard the term, “Laughter is the best medicine.” Would it surprise you to learn that this idiom is actually true?
A number of studies have been done regarding the physiological reactions to laughter. That is, medical science has studied what changes, if any, occur in the body when someone laughs. The results of the studies have been what a lot of people might find astonishing.
Laughing is good for the heart
Some studies have shown that laughter stimulates the heart in a good way. For instance, the Mayo Clinic has found that laughter initially increases the blood pressure and heart rate, while also relaxing the blood vessels, allowing them to expand.
The result is increased blood circulation and an overall drop in blood pressure.
Since laughter also increases the respiration and causes deeper respiration, the amount of oxygen in the blood also increases. This means that with the elevated blood circulation, the cells of the body get a boost of oxygen.
In fact, if you laugh frequently, your chances of having a heart attack or stroke drop.
Better immune system response
An increase in oxygen also means that the immune system is strengthened. The body becomes better at fighting off infections of all sorts. Imagine, laughter can help people with colds and flu to become well faster!
Laughter also causes the body to more effectively remove free radicals, which are implicated in causing cancer. Additionally, laughing makes antioxidants that are in the system work better.
Diabetes
There is some excellent indication that people who don’t laugh very much are far more prone to get diabetes than those who do. This means that laughter can help prevent or fight diabetes!
Psychological benefits
Laughter also causes the brain to release endorphins and it elevates dopamine levels.
Endorphins help to directly relax the body, while also easing pain. That’s right; laughter acts as a powerful analgesic!
Dopamine is the “feel good” neurotransmitter that also has a great deal to do with the proper function of the nerves and motor functions. An increase in dopamine levels generally results in a feeling of euphoria. This means that it also directly fights depression.
The combination of the increased endorphin and dopamine levels even increase digestion, liver function, and kidney function.
Lasting effects
What is more, the positive effects of laughter linger long after you stop laughing. Still, for the best health benefits, a person should endeavor to laugh several times every day.
It is hard to find any system in the body that isn’t positively impacted when we laugh. Preventing heart attack and stroke, increasing liver function, nerve function, kidney function, the immune system, digestion, relieving pain, and fighting cancer is only some of the things that laughter has been proven to help us with.
We should all make a serious effort to laugh more often. Laughter really is good for your health.
wow Very interesting photo! and i agree
I completely agree, Rex. I also think that the funniest people are often the most depressed and emotionally injured people. Humor often comes from pain.
Unfortunately, it can be a defense mechanism and it can be the only thing that keeps the person going. If anything stops that defense mechanism from working, even for a little while, the results are often terrible. Robin Williams is a great example. The laughter can help even then, but only if the person is truthful with themselves so they can learn to rely on more than just laughter.
If you are depressed, force yourself to smile or even better laugh, you’ll be surprised that you feel better afterwards?
Absolutely. Even if you force a laugh, your subconscious doesn’t know the difference and will cause the brain to start releasing dopamine. People were undoubtedly designed to be happy and cheerful. Laughter is a powerful tool.
Great blog Rex! I am one that loves to share laughter. They say it takes less muscles to laugh than it does to frown.
Indeed it does, Martha. I also love to laugh. Back when I was a senior technician in a call center, more than once I was asked how I could have a high success rate when so many of the people calling in were angry and belligerent. There was really no secret. I did what I could to get them to laugh. Once I did, it was invariably easy to fix their problem, because they turned from being angry to being helpful.
A medicine for everybody? Often when we see people looking downhearted or not feeling well, what’s our first instinct to help them? We try to cheer them up. We try to make them laugh. When it comes to convincing me about laughter you’re preaching to the choir. Laughter is proof that God exists. Who else would have thought to put such a wonderful feeling inside of us ALL? It’s in everybody. Nobody got left out. Doesn’t matter if you’re handicapped, what you believe, where you live, etc. We don’t even need to be taught how to laugh.
That can be taken a step farther. We were not only given the right emotions, our bodies were actually created in a way that they respond well, physically, to laughter and kindness. Yes, that is proof of God because by evolution and chance, we wouldn’t have had the substances in our bodies that are predisposed to us being happy, laughing, being kind, and so forth. That would serve no purpose in evolution.
People who are older than us says that laughter can also makes you lose weight or makes you skinny.
Since it can help restore health, I can understand why people might say that. I don’t know about making anyone skinny, but it could help them to get to a healthy weight.
Thank you!
Great piece, really informative, thanks!
I just hope that people will take steps to at least try to laugh a lot more frequently.
Now wouldn’t that be nice! I’ve been to some laughter yoga classes before and the feeling you’re left with afterwards is nothing less than euphoric
That sounds exactly right. Yoga, or strenuous activity for that matter, increases dopamine levels. That is the so-called “runner’s high” that marathon runners experience, but it happens in any strenuous activity or yoga. Laughing increases the dopamine even more. That sounds like a great combination.
Or, to quote the Brummie comedian Jasper Carrott: Laughter is the medicine, unless you’re diabetic, when insulin comes quite high up the list!
The quote, while humorous, neglects to note that laughter helps to fight and to prevent diabetes. lol
Thank you for sharing this post. Laughing does help beat my illnesses even though some people think I am The Joker (Caesar Romero RIP).
People have also known about it for a very long time, yet it is only recently that medical science has shown why laughter is so good for health.
Absolutely true! 🙂
It most certainly is. Interestingly, there are almost as many good physiological changes when a person is kind or gives (and receives) gifts. It seems that kindness and laughter both result in better health.
Very interesting. I’ll try to laugh more and find things to laugh about!
Yes, this is very real. One researcher, as the story goes and it was reputed to be true, had to have cancer surgery. He’d done a lot of research about the healing power of laughter, so he started watching movies that he knew would make him laugh…hours of movies. After a few weeks, he went in to have the last checkup and tests before surgery. He no longer had cancer.
H20
?? I’m not understanding the connection to water.
i love that when i see something new
Well, the idea isn’t new. What is new is that there is now a huge amount of medical research that backs up the claim that laughter is good for health.
great….