Why is laughter the best medicine? All the health benefits of humor

Remember, you could laugh hundreds of times a day when you were a child. Now that you are an adult with all the responsibilities that entails, life prompts you to be more serious and less laughter. Even if this is true, seriously, who said you have to be tough to be effective and “look” serious?

Besides brightening up your day, having a good laugh can improve your health! The sound of laughter brings us together, triggering physical and emotional changes in certain parts of our body. Laughter can reduce stress, anxiety, depression, strengthen the immune system, and ease the pain. And that’s not all. In addition to positively influencing your physical and emotional health, laughter strengthens your social life and can even add a few beautiful years to your life.

What you can do:

• Share funny – even embarrassing – moments with your friends
• “game night” game night
• When you hear laughter, join the movement
• Surround yourself with happy, playful people who laugh easily
• Learn self-mockery: or the art of laughing at yourself

Why is laughter the best “soft medicine” for body and soul?

There is nothing faster than face to face communication with a person to balance your nervous system. Add a dash of laughter to the communication, and you’ve got a powerful antidote to stress, anxiety, pain, and conflict. Humor lightens your burdens, inspires hope, connects you to others, anchors you, helps you stay focused and alert. It also helps calm anger and promotes forgiveness (just that?).

With so much soothing and renewing strength, a great weapon for solving challenges is the ability to laugh easily and regularly, boosting our relationships and supporting our physical and emotional health.

Laughter is good for your health

• Laughing relaxes your whole body. Laughing heartily relieves physical tension as well as accumulated stress and keeps your muscles relaxed for up to 45 minutes!
• Laughing boosts your immune system. Laughter reduces stress hormones, increases immune cells, and increases antibodies. You know, the ones we called “little soldiers” when we were little, and who were used to keep away or outright kill the nasty germs or viruses?
• I am laughing triggers the release of endorphins, the so-called happiness hormones. Endorphin promotes general well-being and may even temporarily relieve pain.
• Laughter protects the heart (1). Laughter improves blood vessel functions and increases blood flow, helping protect you from a heart attack or other cardiovascular problems.
• Laughing burns calories. All right, that’s not a good enough reason to stop going to the gym, but one study (2) found that 10 to 15 minutes of laughter a day can burn around 40 calories. It is not Peru, but the man who cannot be satisfied with little is never happy with anything. And then put an end to end, it must be a few pounds over a year …
• Laughter alleviates anger. Nothing dispels anger and conflict as quickly as a good shared laugh. We see the ridiculous or funny side of a conflict situation (which we are often more inclined to dramatize) can change the perspective of a problem and allow it to be resolved without loss and noise, contempt, or bitterness.
• Laughing can even prolong your life! A study in Norway (3) found that people with a great sense of humor outgrow those who don’t laugh more than that.

Control your emotions with laughter.

When we laugh, we feel good. And this well-being that we feel when we laugh comes with us for a long time afterward. Humor helps us keep a positive, optimistic outlook when we go through difficult situations, grief, or disappointments.

More than a respite from sadness and pain, laughter gives us the courage and strength to find new sources of hope and more meaning in our life. Even in the most difficult times, a giggle or a simple smile can make us “come a long way” and make us feel better. And as you already know, laughter is extremely contagious. Just hearing laughter stimulates your brain, tells your mouth to smile, and prompts you to join in the fun!

The link between laughter and mental health

• Laughing dissolves harmful emotions. You can’t feel anxious, sad, or aggressive when you laugh.
• Laughing helps to relax and recharge. It reduces stress and increases vitality, allowing us to be more focused and achieve more.
• Humor changes perspectives, allowing us to see a situation from a more realistic, less threatening perspective. A humorous view creates psychological distance, which can save us from confusion and avoid spreading conflict.
• Laughter brings us closer to others, and increasing our social engagement can profoundly impact our mental and emotional health.

What humor brings to your social life:

There’s a good reason why comedy TV shows use recorded laughter: laughter is contagious! You are 100 times more likely to laugh when surrounded by people than alone. And the more laughter you bring into your life, the happier people around you will be.

Most of the time, we laugh are not the result of the jokes we hear, but rather of spending time with people we love and trust, like our friends and family. The social aspect plays the most determining role in the benefits of laughter on our health.

When you care enough about the person you’re chatting with that you turn off your phone and connect fully with them, you embark on a process that rebalances your nervous system and dampens emotional responses like stress. And anxiety. When you laugh with this person, you both feel good, more positive, and relaxed! Even if you are not in power to change a stressful situation itself.

Laughter and relationships

Shared laughter is one of the most effective remedies for keeping our relationships “fresh” and uplifting. Any emotional sharing builds strong and lasting bonds, and sharing laughter also adds two ingredients that I love: joy and vitality. Humor is a strong and effective tool to heal rage, conflicts, and injuries. Laughter unites people (and peoples) during difficult times.

Add more zest of humor and play in your daily interactions… and your loves, as well as your friendships or professional relations, will have only more flavor.

Using humor daily allows you to:

• Be more spontaneous: He says “Hush!” to your mind and keeps you away from trouble.
• Letting go: Laughter helps dispel bitterness, judgment, criticism, and doubts.
• Expressing Your True Feelings: You allow your deeply buried emotions to come to the surface pleasantly.

How to add more laughter to your life?

Laughter is a birthright, an innate part of our inner nature. Nah. Just that. Newborns also start to smile from their first week of life and already laugh from their first months. Even if you didn’t grow up in a fun-loving family, you could learn to laugh at any age.

Start by devoting small moments to humor and laughter, as you can take a bath or go for a run.

Here are some ideas to get your foot in the door:

• Smile. Smiling is the start of laughter, and like laughter, it is contagious. When you look at someone or see something pleasant, even just barely, practice smiling. Instead of always having your head in the… smartphone, hold it up and smile at everyone you meet on the street, at work in an elevator, or when you walk into a store. Notice the effect this has on others.
• Count your blessings. Make a list! Just considering the positive events that are happening in your life will ward off negative thoughts, which are a real barrier to humor and laughter. When you feel sad, the road is more or less long to return to laughter, to joy. Don’t let the ditch grow too long, too deep :-).
• When you hear laughter, move closer. Sometimes humor and laughter are private, for example, a delirium shared by a small group. But in general, this is not the case. Most of the time, people love to share what they find funny because it allows them to laugh again and feel the sense of humor you find in it. This is a good reason to approach and even ask when you hear laughter.
• Spend time with funny and funny people. They are people who easily laugh at themselves, at the absurdities of life, and have found a routine with humor in the small daily events. Their ability to have fun with nothing and laugh at (almost) everything is contagious. Even if you don’t find yourself particularly funny, you may still find people who like to laugh or who like to make people laugh. Every actor likes to have an audience.

Introduce humor into your conversations. Ask people, “What is the funniest thing that happened to you today?” This week? In your life?..”

Laughter simulator

Proponents of ” laughter therapy ” and ” laughter yoga ” have found that laughing is possible without a trigger, and pretended laughter could be as beneficial as genuine laughter. In a Georgia State University (USA) study of older adults (4), researchers found that including mock laughter workshops in retirement homes improved endurance. The physical and mental health of these people.

How to develop your sense of humor?

An essential ingredient in developing your sense of humor is not to take yourself too seriously and learn to laugh at your mistakes and weaknesses (before you start laughing at those of others ^^). Even if we like to think otherwise, we all do stupid things at times. Instead of feeling embarrassed or choosing the aggressive option, let’s learn to love our imperfections. While some sad events in our life are not opportunities for laughter, the vast majority of our days, it must be said, are not dramatic. It gives us the 100% opportunity to choose whether or not to laugh. So choose the first option as soon as you can …

• … Laughing at yourself. Share your embarrassing anecdotes. The best way to take yourself less seriously is to talk about the times you took yourself too seriously.
• … By trying to laugh at situations instead of complaining. Extract what can be funny in a ‘bad’ situation and discover the irony of life. When something negative happens to you, try to find a way to turn it into a hilarious anecdote that will make others laugh.
• … By surrounding yourself with humorous and light reminders. Hang a plush pink elephant from the rearview mirror of your car, put a Barbie doll on your desk next to your photos (gentlemen, go for Batman or Scooby-Doo instead). On your computer, choose a wallpaper that makes you laugh.
• … By remembering funny things. If something funny happened or someone told you a joke or anecdote that made you laugh during the day, write them down as a reminder.
• … By not dwelling on the negative. Try to avoid negative people, those who can’t see the humor in any situation. Also, don’t dwell on the news on the news, or discussions that make you sad or angry. Many things in life are beyond our control, especially the behavior of others. If you think taking all the misfortune in the world on your shoulders is admirable, in the long run, it will prove to be unrealistic or even harmful to your health.
• … By connecting with your inner child. Observe the children and try to imitate them. After all, they are the experts at play and fun, taking life lightly and laughing at things that seem ordinary to us.
• … In dealing with stress. A good stress relieving technique is to pull one of your best memories from your memory, one that will always make you smile. Something your children did, for example, or just when they were born, something funny or beautiful that your spouse told you, a very private delirium with your childhood best friend, etc …
• … By not spending a day without laughing. Think, dream, experience humor! Take 10 to 15 minutes a day, no more, to do something fun for you. The more often you think about laughing each day, the easier it will become.

Conclusion

As laughter, humor, and play become an integral part of your life; your creativity will flourish, new opportunities to laugh with your family, friends, coworkers will appear more numerous every day. Laughing gives us a more positive and relaxed outlook on life.

Suppose you are suffering from mental health problems and need help during a pandemic and searching for the best Telehealth psychiatry services. Please contact Kentucky Mental Health Care for the best care and assistance.