Laughter – A Form of Medicine?

These days the only news seems to be bad news, and very few stories make us smile or laugh. We look to comedy shows, stand up comedians and humorous books to cheer us up. But what is laughter?

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Laughter?

Spontaneous laughter is an automatic reflex which is coordinated by the facial muscles and a change in the breathing pattern. Laughter has no biological function except to relieve tension, however, this in itself can be extremely beneficial to a person’s health. Laughter is an emotional response, we may laugh at a witty story where the punch-line is both clever and expresses a universal truth or we may laugh at a situation or person we think ridiculous. This kind of reaction may not be the spontaneous reaction, but more of a bonding exercise, where we laugh because others are laughing and we would feel left out of the conversation or group.

Babies can start to laugh from about 3 months old, and this would seem an involuntary action to a certain stimuli. With so many children appearing to be miserable, I cannot help but smile when I hear a baby or toddler laughing in the supermarket. I don’t think that outside of the natural world there is anything more lovely than children laughing at play.

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Laughter is thought to be associated with aggressive-defensive impulses, a typical situation in which laughter occurs at the moment that a sudden fear has stopped caused by an imaginary danger. The laughter releases the previous tension as the fear disappears. In fact tickling can be seen as a form of ‘mock attack’, as people, especially children are more likely to laugh through a tickling episode if they are being tickled by someone they trust rather than a stranger. The tickling of certain ‘ticklish’ areas of the body; under the arm, the soles of feet are vunerable places and therefore need to be protected, so laughter is not necessarily a pleasure response, but rather a protective reaction.

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Laughter the Best Medicine?

Although laughter may be a protective reaction from our ‘fight or flight’ days, these days laughter can make us feel better. Watching a good comedy, or being out with friends who make you laugh, will increase your blood flow and heart rate, release endorphins into your system making you feel happier and increase your breathing as if you were exercising. This alongside the fact that you tend to be in a happy state already before you start to laugh means that laughter can be the best medicine.