A nice chuckle – good for what ails you. But how good, exactly?
Humour does make life more bearable, and we probably don’t get enough of it on a daily basis. That’s why some people advocate cracking yourself up even when nothing’s funny. It’s become quite a thing.
In fact, the Canadian Laughter Yoga conference and the Canadian Laughing Championships are both happening in Toronto on November 10 and 11.
Still, can ha-has really improve your health?
What the experts say
“The supposed health benefits of laughter are both exaggerated and under-explored. The science is solid around the issue of cardiovascular health and immunity. Just anticipating a good laugh increases the production of immune cells in saliva. There is a catch: to get the benefits of laughter, you need to do 10 to 20 minutes a day. The breakthrough of Madan Kataria, who invented Laughter Yoga, was that simply making the sounds of laughter with yogic breathing will provoke real laughter. I developed Laughercize, which relies on laughter triggers. Laughter techniques help depression, high blood pressure and even addiction. I work at Sobriety Home in Quebec, where we use laughter therapy on cocaine and heroin addicts. It seems to help. People use Skype to form laughter clubs. At a predetermined time, people from all over the world laugh for an hour then hang up!”
ALBERT NERENBERG, laughologist, Montreal
“Lean forward and fill up your face with laughter. Then breathe in, lie back in your chair and let go of a little laughter. If you fill up your throat, you’re going to feel what I call the “girls’ night out” laughter. If you keep going with the [forward-backward] motion, it just builds. It’s an ancient Buddhist type of laughter, typically done standing with feet apart using the same rocking motion. When you do this in the company of other people, it’s really hard to stop. We can notice when we’re tense or something is constrictive in the body put hands on that place and laugh into it until you notice the muscles relaxing.”
LYNDA TOURLOUKIS, director of Fun and Frolic, laughter coach, Chicago
“Laughter helps us cope with stress and alleviates pain by distracting us and increasing pain tolerance. Laughter potentially stimulates endorphin release and the release of neurotransmitters serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine, all causing benefits. Cortisol is lowered by therapeutic laughter, and this hormone decrease accounts for stress-coping and other metabolic healthy changes related to blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol and others. There are guidelines for therapeutic laughter, and my handbook helps physicians apply [the technique]. No humour or other stimuli are needed. The effects of simulated laughter are similar to spontaneous laughter. Simulated laughter turns into spontaneous laughter after practise.”
RAMON MORA-RIPOLL, medical scientific director, Organizacion Mundial de la Risa, Barcelona, Spain
“Laughter has a relatively minor health benefit you would be better off going for a walk. However, the positive emotional experience of amusement, which laughter signals, contributes to health in three ways: 1) funny people are enjoyable company, which translates into social support when you are sick, 2) positive emotions like amusement help buffer stressful situations that make you sick, and 3) turning something bad into something funny helps you cope. Emerging research suggests that the secret to a good belly laugh is to seek out benign violations – situations that seem wrong but actually are okay.”
PETER McGRAW, director, Humor Research Lab, co-author, The Humor Code: A Global Search For What Makes Things Funny, Boulder, Colorado
“Laughter is the sound of play. The modern human ‘ha-ha’ evolved from the ancestral ‘pant-pant,’ the sound of laboured breathing of physical play. Laughter, like speech, is a highly social vocalization we seldom laugh when alone. As with speech, any health benefit must be secondary to its communication function. Although laughter may be a sign of good health, it may not be its cause. A life filled with laughter is filled with the play that causes it and is clearly on the right track. Must laughter have a medicinal function? Laughter feels good when we do it. Isn’t that enough?”
ROBERT R. PROVINE, professor of psychology, U of Maryland, Baltimore County, author, Curious Behavior: Yawning, Laughing, Hiccupping, And Beyond
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