10 Things You May Not Know
About Laughter
November 13, 2014 131,679 views
If you want to communicate with someone from across
the globe who speaks a different language, all you have to do is laugh.
Laughter is a form of communication that’s universally recognized, which
suggests it has deep importance to humankind.1
It's thought that laughter may have occurred before
humans could speak as a playful way for mothers and infants to communicate, as
a form of play vocalization, or to strengthen group bonds. Even today our
brains are wired to prime us to smile or laugh when we hear others laughing.
Yet, laughter is a largely involuntary response;
it’s not generally something you can force yourself to do. Instead, laughter is
thought to be triggered by mechanisms in your brain and impacts breathing
patterns, facial expressions, and even the muscles in your arms and legs.
It plays a role in your health, too, and has many
quirks and mysteries that make it one of the most fascinating physical
reactions that a human (and certain other species) can make.
10 Fascinating Facts About Laughter
Professor Sophie Scott, a neuroscientist and
stand-up comic, put together these surprising facts about laughter.
1. Rats Laugh When They’re Tickled
Rats laugh when they’re tickled, and the more they
play together, the more they laugh. Psychologist Jack Panksepp first observed
laughing rats in the 1990s; he needed special equipment to hear it, as rats’
laughs are very high pitched.
2. You’re More Likely to Laugh Around Others – Not
Because of Jokes
If you're laughing, you're far more likely to be surrounded by others, according to research by laughter expert Dr.
Robert Provine. The critical laughter trigger for most people is another
person, not a joke or funny movie.
After observing 1,200 people laughing in their
natural environments, Dr. Provine and his team found that laughter followed
jokes only about 10-20 percent of the time. Social laughter occurs 30
times more frequently than solitary laughter.
In most cases, the laughter followed a banal
comment or only slightly humorous one, which signals that the person is more
important than the material in triggering laughter.
3. Your Brain Can Detect Fake Laughter
Professor Scott’s research has shown that your
brain can tell the difference between real or staged laughter. When you hear
staged, or deliberate, laughter, it prompts more activity in your brain’s
anterior medial prefrontal cortex, which helps you understand other people’s
emotions.
This suggests your brain automatically goes to work
deciphering why someone is deliberately laughing.
4. Laughter Is Contagious
The saying "laugh and the whole world laughs
with you" is more than just an expression: laughter really is contagious.
The sound of laughter triggers regions in the premotor cortical region of your
brain, which is involved in moving your facial muscles to correspond with sound
and prepare to join in.3
5. Jokes Are Funnier if You Know the Comedian
Familiarity is a key part of humor and laughter,
and research shows people find jokes told by famous comedians to be funnier
than the same joke told by someone they’re not familiar with.
6. Laughing Burns Calories
Laughing raises both your energy expenditure and
heart rate by about 10 percent to 20 percent. This means you could burn about
10-40 calories by laughing for 10 to 15 minutes. While this sounds good in
theory, you’d have to laugh solidly for an hour or more for this calorie
burning to have any meaningful effect.
7. Laughing Is Good for Your Relationships
Research shows that couples who use laughter and
smile when discussing a touchy subject feel better in the immediacy and report
higher levels of satisfaction in their relationship. They also tend to stay
together longer.
8. Laughter Requires Timing
Laughter has a distinctive pattern. It rarely
occurs in the middle of a sentence. Instead, laughter tends to occur at the end
of sentences or during a break in speech, which suggests language is given the
priority. According to Dr. Provine:4
"The occurrence of speaker laughter at the end
of phrases suggests that a neurologically based process governs the placement
of laughter in speech.
Different brain regions are involved in the
expression of cognitively oriented speech and the more emotion-laden
vocalization of laughter."
Comedians also use the natural tendency for
laughter to grow and fade to their advantage, and will leave spaces at the end
of a sentence for the audience to fill in with laughter.
9. Laughter Is Attractive
Research by Dr. Provine found that women laugh 126
percent more than men in cross-gender conversations, with men preferring to be
the one prompting the laughter.
In a review of more than 3,700 newspaper personal
ads, Dr. Provine revealed that women were 62 percent more likely to mention
laughter, including seeking a mate with a sense of humor, while men were more
likely to offer humor in their ads.
10. Some Things Can Make Virtually Everyone Laugh
While there’s no one joke that makes everyone laugh,
Professor Scott found that one of the best tools for making people laugh in her
lab is a clip of people trying not to laugh in a situation where it
would be highly inappropriate to do so.
Laughter Is Good for Your Memory Too
Researchers at California's Loma Linda University
looked into the role that humor can have on your health. They broke 20 older
adults into two groups – one that watched funny videos and one that sat
silently for 20 minutes. Before and after the session, both groups took a
short-term memory test…
The humor group showed significantly more
improvement on the test, 43.6 percent compared to 20 percent in the non-humor
group.5 Those
in the humor group also had significantly lower levels of the stress hormone
cortisol. According to the researchers, laughter represents an enjoyable tool
to help counteract age-related memory decline in older adults:
“The study's findings suggest that humor can have
clinical benefits and rehabilitative implications and can be implemented in
programs that support whole-person wellness for older adults. Learning ability
and delayed recall are important to these individuals for a better quality of
life--considering mind, body, spirit, social, and economic aspects. Older
adults may have age-associated memory deficiencies. However, medical
practitioners now can offer positive, enjoyable, and beneficial humor therapies
to improve these deficiencies.”
Laughter Enhances Immunity, Improves Sleep, and
More
What else is laughter good for? Research has shown
laughter may reduce stress hormones and boost your immune function,6 while
also inducing optimistic feelings.7
Laughter has demonstrated a wealth of physiological, psychological, social,
spiritual, and quality-of-life benefits, such that increasing numbers of health
care centers are adopting laughter therapy as a form of complementary care.
Opportunities that provide for group laughter, such as laughter yoga and laugh
parties, are also becoming increasingly popular around the world. Just a short
list of the benefits of laughter therapy are noted below:
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Relaxing your muscles
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Triggering the release of your body's natural
painkillers (endorphins)
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Improving sleep
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Enhancing creativity and memory
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Easing digestion
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Enhancing oxygen intake
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Improving well-being and positive emotions
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Boosting immune function
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Improving blood pressure
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Laugh Each and Every Day
Children laugh easily and often, but adults may
forget to make room for laughter in their daily lives. If you can, incorporate
laughter into your daily routine by finding what makes you laugh. Remember that
you’re more likely to laugh in the company of others, so try to find the humor
in life when you’re spending time with friends, family, and co-workers.
Some experts even recommend everyone get 15 to 20
minutes of laughter a day, much like you should exercise regularly and eat your
vegetables. If you haven’t had your daily dose of laughter yet, check out the
video below. It’s living proof that laughter is contagious…
By Dr. Mercola Internet article
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