If you are reading these lines, there are two options. Either you want to laugh, or cry. Assumptions aside, we are going to tell you what laughter can do for your health without realizing it.
Laughter has beneficial effects that we can differentiate at a physical and psychological level,” says Isabel Rodero, a TAP Center pedagogue. Advanced Psychological Treatment, developing them below.
As for the physical benefits:
• It keeps us in shape, since we work muscles that we don’t normally use.
• We oxygenate our body better, since between laughter we catch twice as much air as with normal breathing.
• Our body generates more antibodies; therefore it strengthens our immune system.
On a psychological level, laughter is a liberator of endorphins, which causes substances that fight anxiety and depression to be generated. In this way:
• Laughter makes us and the people around us happy and activates cortical areas in charge of relationships at the social level, so it improves our social relationships.
• Smiling is a way of living together.
• Promotes positive mood and, therefore, we generate optimism.
• It helps us to relativize reality and integration into it, however hard it may seem.
But there is more. “Laughter is known to help patients recover up to 60 percent. Hence the appearance of the Smile Doctors, who go to the hospitals to help the children admitted, adds Isabel Serrano Rosa, psychologist and couples therapist who directs positively YES.
What brain response causes laughter?
In the brain, laughter, says Serrano, activates the hippocampus (memory center) and goes to the amygdala (the center of emotions), then launching the cortex area – which is the one destined for processes intellectuals – and from there to the area of the brain that activates the smile or laughter (core numbing). This depends on mood, personality or the absence of psychological disorders.
The expert comments that some studies indicate that laughing increases the number of neurotransmitter substances, and there seems to be a correlation between laughter and decreased Alzheimer’s disease.
It also generates endorphins, dopamine, serotonin and adrenaline, all hormones that contribute to physical well-being.
As Rodero deepens, when we laugh because we are happy, our brain releases endorphins, which produces beneficial effects for the body. Endorphins are known as happiness hormones. Kandi Burruss Makes Fans Laugh Their Hearts Out With This Hilarious Post. Laughter also limits the production of a hormone called cortisol (responsible for stress), and releases dopamine in the brain, a neurotransmitter associated with mental agility by improving neuronal connections.
Regarding whether to laugh a lot, or at least enough, slows aging, “there are no significant results from studies conducted in this regard. However, professional experiences and subjective experiences are known about the effects that cause a positive attitude and optimistic thinking in the cure of diseases such as cancer, even in some pathologies of degenerative origin. We do not know for sure if this could slow down aging, but, surely – whether it is a long or a short time in life – living it positively will give extra quality to our vital experiences, ”says the TAP Center pedagogue.
On the other hand, laughter therapy fosters the awareness of paying attention to the present moment and carrying out activities in order to entertain the people who practice it. For this reason, it is indicated, always as a complement, in some treatments against anxiety, stress, says Rodeo.
It also serves to increase self-esteem and produces emotional stability, adds Serrano. As the expositive director warns, there are exceptions in which excessive laughter may have risks. “In the states of euphoria we disconnect from ourselves, from others and from reality. We are flown. Some people narrate that under the excitement of the moment they have signed employment contracts, bought a house or married in Las Vegas (United States) and then regretted it. Also, we can turn our thread into our own assessment, fattening false joys and filling the world with vain.
