What's going on inside your body when you laugh?
Laughter is a part of being human from the first few months of life.
According to statistics, children laugh about 300 times a day on average, and adults laugh an average of 15 to 100 times a day. Women are generally more likely to laugh than men.
Laughing produces a sense of happiness. What’s going on inside your body when you grin?
People who love to laugh extend their life by four years, benefiting the whole body
A summary of studies by the Spanish Society of Neurology found that people who laugh or smile live four and a half years longer than those who don’t.
A good mood can strengthen the immune system, which in turn affects the health of the body. “Pleasant Emotion Therapy” in psychotherapy helps patients have a positive emotional experience.
When you grin, these changes are happening inside your body:
Lower stress hormones
Laughing once reduced levels of the three stress hormones cortisol, epinephrine, and dobachol in the body by 39%, 70%, and 38%, respectively.
Stimulate serotonin secretion
Smiling can promote the secretion of the neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain, and serotonin can reduce negative emotions such as irritability, enhance pleasure, and make people feel happy.
Stimulate the immune system
Laughter can reduce the level of inflammation in the body and increase the activity of K lymphocytes (a type of immune cells that play a role in fighting viruses, parasites, tumors, etc.). Therefore, laughter helps to strengthen the body’s immune system and protect the body from disease.
Significantly increased pain threshold
Laughing can relieve pain because it promotes the production of endorphins in the body. It is a natural pain reliever that enhances our ability to fight pain. When you’re suffering from illness, try to make yourself a little bit happier and maybe less painful.
Blood circulation is improved
When a person laughs, the blood flow to the organs increases and the blood circulation improves. In addition, laughter can also dilate blood vessels, increase blood supply to the brain, and lower blood pressure, so it can be called a “natural antihypertensive drug”.
In contrast to people who don’t like to laugh for a long time, a study by the Yamagata University School of Medicine in Japan found that men, smokers, inactive people, and diabetics are the majority of those who laugh less frequently.
Compared with those who laughed the most, those who laughed least often had a 1.95-fold higher risk of all-cause mortality and a 1.62-fold higher risk of cardiovascular events (stroke, myocardial infarction, angina, etc.).
6 cool science facts about laughter
Have you ever noticed that you feel refreshed every time you laugh out loud? The most common expression of a smile, in addition to making people feel happy, also hides a lot of scientific cold knowledge.
- Laughing is an aerobic exercise
Laughing activates 53 muscles in the human body, which can exercise body parts such as the abdomen, shoulders, and diaphragm. Laughing for 10 to 15 minutes a day can burn 10 to 40 kcal.
A study by the University of Navarra in Spain showed that laughing 100 times is equivalent to cycling for 15 minutes.
- Laughing more improves concentration
A study by Kinki University in Japan proved that laughter can increase cerebral blood flow, improve cognitive function in the brain, and improve concentration.
After watching the video and laughing, people can concentrate more, answer questions faster, and increase blood flow in the frontal lobe related to brain activation by about 2.7 times.
- Laughter strengthens relationships
Laughter has a strong social attribute. Early in life, a baby’s laughter is an external sign of happiness and helps strengthen the bond with the caregiver. Later, the laughter evolved into a sign of appreciation. Practicing a smile every day strengthens our social skills.
- Laughing more prolongs life than laughing
A study from the Department of Psychology at the University of Basel in Switzerland found that laughing every now and then throughout the day can help reduce stress and improve mood more than a one-time belly laugh.
- Even a fake smile reduces stress
Smiling relieves physical tension and reduces stress hormones in the brain. People tend to frown when stressed, and even a fake smile can have a positive effect on stress relief.
- Smile has region
In Strange Things, British psychologist Dr. Richard Wiseman says there is a clear geographic preference for what constitutes “interesting things”.
Americans usually like to tell jokes that contain a sense of superiority; continental Europeans tend to be light-hearted; British people are most easily amused by word games.
How to make yourself a person who loves to laugh?
A smile brings more than just that moment of happiness. People who laugh for a long time benefit from head to toe. I understand the truth, so how do you make yourself laugh?
No.1 Spend more time with people who love to laugh
A smile is contagious. Robert Provine, a professor of psychology at the University of Maryland in the United States, confirmed that just listening to recorded laughter caused subjects to giggle, which is why pre-recorded laughter is used in sitcoms.
When laughter is heard, the area of the brain responsible for smiling automatically responds, displaying a smile that comes from the heart. You’re 30 times more likely to laugh when someone is around you than when you’re alone.
No.2 Practice smiling for 10 minutes a day
Smile practice is best done regularly several times a day, about 10 minutes each time.
If you can’t think of anything worth laughing about, you can pretend to be happy, and then gradually expand into a grin, and then you end up laughing.
A study published in Psychological Reports shows that forcing yourself to laugh (or even just smile) can improve mood. This is because the human brain cannot distinguish between genuine and fake laughter, and thus both achieve corresponding health benefits.
No.3 Try watching talk shows and cross-talk
A study by the International Cancer Center in Osaka, Japan found that cancer patients who enjoyed laughing while watching talk shows, stand-up comics, and counterpart comics had significantly improved immune function.
At the same time, the researchers found in the questionnaire that patients who often watched cross-talk felt their pain symptoms improve, and after enjoying a pleasant laugh, their tension, depression, and anger eased a lot, and their quality of life improved.
