Benefits Of Laughter & Humor

People usually go to laughter and humor to improve the mood and be entertained, and humor can also be used as a tool to communicate with others and improve the relationships between them, which is a significantly effective tool if used properly.

Laughter and humor

• Laughter is a normal body reaction that occurs when being stimulated by a certain stimulator, like humor, or as a response to the surrounding environment. Numerous people use humor to make others laugh as a means of fun and entertainment to benefit from its positive effect, even if it’s temporary.
• People differ in how they perceive humor because what’s funny for someone might not be funny for another, and they also differ in how they accept it. Moreover, the capability of joking around varies among people because being funny is a skill that not everyone has, for sure.

Benefits of laughter and humor

Researchers have noticed the benefits of laughter to both psychological and physical health and conducted several studies to monitor how it impacts the brain.

Benefits to physical health:

• Reducing stress levels as a result of reducing cortisol levels.
• Boosting the immune system.
• Regulating the blood pressure and heartrate.
• Improving memory, attention, and concentration.
• Relieving muscle tension and body aches, like post-operative pain and chronic pain cases.

Benefits to mental health:

• Decreasing depression and anxiety.
• Improving the mood in general.
• It helps to cope with difficult circumstances and life pressures.
• Studies noticed that laughter and humor have a big role in improving the teaching and learning environment by improving the relationships between the teachers and students.
• Other studies also manifested the positive effect of laughter and humor in improving the work environment in addition to the relationships between the managers and employees and between the employees themselves as well.

Laughter and humor as a prescription

• Scientists have observed the positive effects and health benefits that spontaneous laughter (which occurs as a normal reaction to a funny thing) provides; therefore, they studied the possibility of using self-induced laughter (a person induces it on purpose) as an aid in certain health conditions.
• Spontaneous laughter occurs as an automatic reaction to a certain stimulus, and it’s often associated with a positive mood, while self-induced laughter is a completely physical action that isn’t necessarily associated with mood improvement.
• It’s been noticed that the path of self-induced laughter in the brain differs from the one of spontaneous laughter, yet they have some similar effects regarding how the body reacts. Therefore, they studied the possibility of using self-induced laughter as an aid to reduce stress and relieve pain.

However, despite the several benefits of laughter and humor, paying attention to the fact that humor is a double-edged sword is a necessity because it might impact some people negatively if it isn’t used properly.