We often hear about how laughter reduces stress, but you might be wondering how it does that. Besides the obvious benefit of just making you feel good, the short and long term health benefits of laughter are plentiful. Let’s take a look at a few of them:
- Activates and alleviates your stress response— Much like a great cardio session, laughter helps rev up and then cool down the body’s stress response. Getting in those yuks can help favorably maintain heart rate and blood pressure, leaving you feeling blissed out and relaxed.
- Relieves muscle tension— When people say to let tension roll off your shoulders, a good bout of laughter should do the trick. It helps with blood circulation and easing muscle tension, a physical manifestation of stress.
- Boosts immune health— It’s true that stress can manifest itself physically and take a toll on our health. When negative thoughts permeate your day, it can increase overall stress levels and lower your immune defenses, making it easier to get sick. By contrast, laughter and positive thoughts release neuropeptides that not only can help fight stress, but also help fight off illnesses. Laughing can also increase the amount of T cells and natural killer (NK) cells in the body, two integral parts of the immune system that work hard to fight challenges and keep you healthy. Mind over matter!
- Pain relief— Laughter triggers the release of chemicals that help ease pain and also promote a positive state of mind and sense of well-being.
- Improves mental health— Laughter helps lower levels of cortisol, more commonly known as the stress hormone, along with epinephrine and growth hormone. Lower levels of these hormones are associated with lower levels of stress. Laughter also alters dopamine and serotonin activity, two neurotransmitters well known for their feel-good properties that help keep you happy and fight depression.
So, next time you’re feeling under the weather and ready to binge some Netflix, you might want to pick a comedy or the stand-up show, because there’s science behind a pick-me-up!
