47 Proven Benefits of Laughter (No. 2 & 4 Via Observation)

Laughter is an expression of joy or happiness.  It is the form of physical reaction as a response of a sanguine external or internal impetus. As we laugh, we change physiologically. Our face muscles stretches, our pulse and blood pressure soar. As we breathe faster, more oxygen comes to our muscles.

It is famously said as the best medicine. After all, laughter cannot cure all illnesses. Some of the researchers think that laughter can ease our pain away, helps us feeling better. However, there are different opinions say that laughter is not the only better medicine since a good sense of humor, a positive perspective, and the support of friends and family play an important role too. Nevertheless, laughter is proven to emerge positive things and beneficial for our health, either it is for physical and mental health, for our beauty and for pregnant mothers:

1- 23 Benefits of Laughter for Your Physical Health

1. Activates numerous organs. It boosts the absorption of oxygen that eventually activates your heart, lungs and muscles and finally it escalades the level of endorphins released by our brain.
2. Activates and alleviate our response to stress. Our guffaw hinders our stress response and it works effectively to level up our heart rate and blood pressure. As a result, we will experience excitation.
3. Pacifies tensions. Laughter works magically to enliven circulation and assist muscle alleviation. The collaboration of both is effective to decrease stress physical symptoms.
4. Escalates our immune system.Our body is sometimes infected by negative cogitation that reveals into chemical response. It emerges more stress into our body system and levels down our immunity. Since stress hormone depresses the immunity system, it works as immune system strengthener.  Laughter can indeed increase our immune system since it triggers the escalation of infection-fighting antibodies which finally elevate the immune cells level. Therefore, watching comedy shows that entertains you is strongly recommended.
5. Pain Alleviation.Laughter aids our body in alleviating the pain when our body attains its natural painkillers. Laughter has its analgesic effects that tolerate the pain. On Lily Tomlin’s research found out that people who burst into laughter for 20 minutes are able to tolerate the pain because of the tight cuff in their suit.
6. Facilitates bloodstream. Laugher does help the bloodstream to our face area, especially the area around our eyes. It also activates the nasolacrimal duct (tears duct). Therefore, human can cry when they laugh out loud. Based on the study, when we produce tears either in sadness or happiness, it decreases our stress level.
7. Strengthens diapraghm. Bursting into laughter strengthen our diapraghm or muscles under our lungs. This muscles pumps and fills the air into our lung. Laughing out loud also facilitates the flow of oxygen into our lungs.
8. Maintains the sugar level. Laughter helps maintaining the sugar level in our blood. It is good for someone who suffers from diabetes. Michael Miller, a cardiologist in University of Maryland, in his research said that laughing during watching comedy show influences the contraction of endothelium. That substance decreases the production of stress hormone.
9. Part of sport. Laughter is part of sport because it makes our muscles tense and pliable in turn. When we laugh, our heart beat and our blood level increase and decrease soon after. Laughter is also beneficial for elderly and sick people since it replaces 2 miles walk.
10. Flattens the belly. Laughter helps us to flat our belly the same as when we row for 10 minutes. Laughter can increase our heart beat and the contraction of our belly, the same as rowing athlete when they are rowing.
11. Facilitates our blood flow. When we laugh, they are circulating their blood flow in our body. Laughing makes our muscles and blood vessels stretch. In that way, our blood will run smoothly through our body. It is different when we are sullen. Sullen will narrow our muscles and nerves. As a result, we will suffer from various illnesses.
12. Burns calorie. The magical benefit of laughter is its ability to burn our calorie, a substance that makes our body fat and unhealthy. Laughter can burn 10-40 calorie in 15 minutes.
13. Makes other healthy. It makes others healthy with us since:
14. It is impossible for us to laugh out loud by ourselves. People might think that we are crazy.
15. Laughing is contagious. People will easily be infected by our laughter.
16. Laughing with us will make their stress disappear. As a result, they are healthy too.
17. Healthier heart. Laughing helps our diaphragm muscles in our heart moving. Consequently, diaphragm muscles in our heart make our heart healthier.
18. Long live. It is indeed that we have no idea about our life span. However, several researches found out that people who are easily laugh are healthier than people who are not. It is because laughing can make us healthy.
19. Lowers Blood Sugar Level. For people who suffer from diabetes, laughing is effective to lower their blood level because:
    1. Laughing out loud influence our neuroendocrine system.
    2. Neuroendocrine that works optimally can lower our blood level faster.
20. Reduces muscles tension. Laughter helps us in reducing the tension in our muscles. When our blood circulation is increasing and our muscles relax, laughing out loud helps us melting physical symptoms.
21. Releases stress. Laughing releases stress in our heart so that it will alleviate the work of our heart. When we laugh, the stress-counter hormones are freed from our body.
22. Makes us energetic. Laughter will give certain chemical changes in our body. When we laugh, our body releases a “happy” hormone called Endorphine. Endorphine is a chemical substance that is released during exercise or sport. It will make us more energetic.
23. Physically good for us. Besides lessening our muscles tension, laughter is proven to increase our memory, preventing us from heart problem and increase our immune system. Even a false laughter gives us benefits.

24- 39 Benefits of Laughter for Your Mental Health

24. Decreasing stress and serious emotion. When you are hurt or carry heavy burden, we usually will feel stress. Sadness and stress will make us focus on our problem. During those times, you might forget to laugh because our problem absorbs us. In fact, that is not a good way to face problem. It is better for us to find things to entertain us, to make us laugh. When we laugh our brain will automatically response to our nerves and emerge happiness expression that finally will lessen our stress.
25. As a meditation. In India, laughter is used as a one of therapy form. That is how we relax and forget about our burden and problem for a while. If we can laugh out loud, we feel very relax. During laughter therapy, we can laugh everywhere without specific reason. The processes of laughter therapy itself are indeed very simple and consist of three steps:
    • We should make our body relax by stretching.
    • Start laughing. It might be difficult at first. But soon after we experience our first laughter, the next laughter will come naturally.
    • Feel the silence after we laugh and enjoy the sense of relaxed. In order to feel the sense all day, it is suggested to be done early in the morning. Practice these steps as a morning bath ritual, during make-up time or when we prepare breakfast. We will feel better effect from this meditation if we do it with other people, for example our family members or our friends. The energy it emerges will work contagiously among all of us. People might think we are crazy if we laugh by ourselves. If we do it in group, other people will understand more about our action. We can start smiling when we meet people because smiling is the trigger of laughing. The same as laughter, smile also works contagiously. We should socialize with people who have such a high sense of humor as we will laugh more often. If we hear the sound of laughter, we should immediately join. Sometimes indeed there are personal jokes among small group, but there are times when we can join that group to laugh together because people like to share something funny.
26. Emerges positive energy. Laughing helps us planting the positive thought in our selves because we can get rid of our anger and negative thought in our selves.
27. Eliminate our fear. Laughing helps us to change our fear becomes a feeling that is eager to face the challenge. Altering our fear becomes a challenge makes us are not afraid to face that challenge because laughter makes fear lost its sensation. For example, when you see a muscular-tattoo-man run away after he sees a cockroach, your expression will suddenly change. You might be afraid at first but you will laugh out loud at the end. That is the benefit of laughing. Don’t be too serious thinking about things that you can handle because when you solve your problem with laughter everything feels easier.
28. Boredom Busting. When you are bored and frustrated to find some things that can entertain you, watching comedy shows or movies will surely wipe your boredom out.
29. Increase our mood. Laughter can increase our mood since it can counter the depression symptoms and anxiety as well as increase our overall happiness.
30. Ease our pain. When we laugh, our body naturally creates pain relievers substance that is helpful to squeeze the pain. For example, muscles disturbance will minimize since the contraction cycles that weaken the muscles severed.
31. Problem solving. Laughter helps us solve the problems better. Giggle makes us feel better and happy about ourselves. Laughter also helps building relationship with others. Being able to laugh during our hard times helps us in facing our life difficulties.
32. Strengthens a relationship. A relationship full with humor is fun, anxiety free and not boring. Laughter does not only help us to change our point of view but also strengthen our togetherness.
33. Escalates personal contentedness.Laughter can also facilitate us to deal with complicated issue. If we experience such a tough problem that lead us to depression, laughter can minimize your burden and send joys to out nerve system.
34. Triggers joy. As we burst into laughter, all of our body elements, such as ears, brain, muscles, joints are active. During that condition, our body release dopamine hormone that triggers our joy feeling. The feeling then propagates to all of our body tissues.
35. Makes us feel better. Laughing is closely related to our psychological condition since when we laugh our feeling grows better.
36. A mood conversion. When people in their bad mood, the energy that they release is not positive at all. Bad mood influence people activity. When there are people or things that can change their bad mood into good mood with laughter, those people will directly forget their bad mood. As a result, they will emerge positive atmosphere instead.
37. Prevents Stress. The most vivid benefits of laughter is preventing stress. People who are always happy won’t experience to feel the hormone that causes stress: epinephrine and cortisol. When you are laughing, those two hormones will deliberately decrease. Those two hormones generate negative impact:
    • Decreasing our immunity so that makes us fragile.
    • We will easily expose to an infection agent.
    • Worsen our fragile condition.
    • If those two hormones exist dominantly in our body, they will inhibit our prolactin, insulin, and tiroid hormones which have contradictive function of those two hormones.
38. Ease our sadness. Laughter has various benefits. Easing our sadness is one of them. If we are sad, laughter is one of the keys to ease and overcome our sadness. Laughter will bring peace both to our mind and soul.
39. Increases our self-confident. When someone makes us as a barrel of joke and you laugh over his jokes, it gives you benefits. You will spare yourself from anger. When you laugh over the jokes, it shows that you have confident that you are strong because you are able to laugh over yourself.

40 – 41  Benefits of laughter for Beauty

40. Blushes our face. When we laugh, 15 of our face muscles experience the contraction so that it helps the bloodstream to that area. As a result, our face tauts, blushing, and shining.
41. Makes us slim. When we laugh, our heart beat increase for 10-20 percent and it burns our calorie 1,3 per minute. Laughing for 15 minutes every day for a year will decrease our calorie for as much as two kilogram.

42 – 47 Benefits of Laughter for Pregnant

42. The result of the research says that laughing is similar to sport. When people laugh out loud, they will shake their belly muscles, breast, and shoulder that makes as if their body is doing aerobic. Besides, when we laugh, we will breathe strongly and it trains our heart muscles as well as facilitates our blood circulation. As a result, it will fasten the oxygen flow to pregnant mothers’ body as well as to their fetus. Pregnant mothers and their fetus will be healthy because of this laughing process. It is because the supply of oxygen and nutrition that the baby need can be obtained well.
43. Laughter also useful for increasing our immune system because when we laugh, our body produces T cells that are needed to counter illnesses. Therefore, pregnant mothers are well protected because their immune system is increasing. Meanwhile, their fetus will also get sufficient antibody because new born babies are not able to produce their own antibody. If both mothers and babies have sufficient antibody, they won’t get infection.
44. Laughter makes pregnant mother’s lung clean. There is a changing air during our laughter so that saturated air in our lung is replaced by clean air. It makes our blood has rich of oxygen and our respiratory will be more clean. The research says that laughing trains our respiratory muscles, lungs, heart, belly and expel foreign substances from our respiratory.
45. Laughter is also able to make us younger because when we laugh we use 15 of our face muscles. It is good for pregnant mothers because they will feel happy all the time.
46. Laughter inhibits cortisole hormone that is responsible for stress and hamper the blod flow to placenta. As a result, the baby cannot receive nutrition sufficiently so that they cannot grow optimally. Pregnant mothers may not experience the stress since it is definitely not good for their fetus growth and the risk of having prematurely born baby is increasing because hormone produced by our brain and placenta trigger the body to release chemical substance called prostaglandin. This substance triggers womb contraction that causes premature born.

Benefit of laughter Base on real Observation

The saliva of people who often laugh has higher immunity than the saliva of people who seldom laugh. Based on the study from Loma Linda Lee Berk showed that the saliva of people who often laugh contains more T-cells diminish agent and it increases the immunity. From now on, let’s enjoy our life. Widened your mouth and laugh together to ease the loads in your life.