Your body could use a belly laugh
Markham Heid @markhamh
It may not be the best
medicine. But laughter’s great for you, and it may even compare to a proper
diet and exercise when it comes to keeping you healthy and disease free.
That’s according to Dr. Lee
Berk, an associate professor at Loma Linda University in California who has
spent nearly three decades studying the ways the aftershocks of a good laugh
ripple through your brain and body.
Berk says your mind, hormone
system and immune system are constantly communicating with one another in ways
that impact everything from your mood to your ability to fend off sickness and
disease. Take grief: “Grief induces stress hormones, which suppress your immune
function, which can lead to sickness,” he says. Hardly a week goes by without
new research tying stress to another major ailment.
Why mention stress? “Because
laughter appears to cause all the reciprocal, or opposite, effects of stress,”
Berk explains. He says laughter shuts down the release of stress hormones like
cortisol. It also triggers the production of feel-good neurochemicals like
dopamine, which have all kinds of calming, anti-anxiety benefits. Think of
laughter as the yin to stress’s yang.
Thanks largely to these
stress-quashing powers, laughter has been linked to health benefits ranging
from lower levels of inflammation to improved blood flow, Berk says. Some
research from Western Kentucky University has also tied a good chuckle to
greater numbers and activity of “killer cells,” which your immune system
deploys to attack disease. “Many of these same things also happen when you
sleep right, eat right, and exercise,” Berk says, which is why he lumps
laughter in with more traditional healthy lifestyle activities.
Berk has even shown that
laughter causes a change in the way your brain’s many neurons communicate with
one another. Specifically, laughter seems to induce “gamma” frequencies—the
type of brain waves observed among experienced meditators. These gamma waves
improve the “synchronization” of your neuronal activity, which bolsters recall
and memory, Berk says.
How does laughter accomplish
all this? That’s where things get murky, says Dr. Robert Provine, a
neuroscientist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and author of
Curious Behavior: Yawning, Laughing, Hiccupping, and Beyond.
Provine calls himself a
“reserved optimist” when it comes to laughter’s health-bolstering properties.
“One of the challenges of studying laughter is that there are so many things
that trigger it,” Provine explains. For example, you’re 30 times more likely to
laugh around other people than when you are by yourself, he says. Social
relationships and companionship have been tied to numerous health benefits. And
so the social component of laughter may play a big part in its healthful
attributes, Provine adds.
Here’s why that matters: If
you’re going to tell people they should laugh to improve their health, there
may be a big difference between guffawing on your own without provocation,
watching a funny YouTube clip or meeting up with friends who make you laugh,
Provine says.
“That doesn’t mean the benefits
aren’t real,” he adds. “But it may not be accurate to credit laughter alone
with all these superpowers.”
But even for researchers like
Provine who aren’t ready—at least not yet—to coronate laughter as a panacea, he
doesn’t dispute the benefits associated with a hearty har har. He only
questions science’s current understanding of the underlying mechanisms.
When we laugh, we’re in a happy
place,” he says. “That’s always a good thing.”
