Why Do We Laugh?
From William Shakespeare to Robin Williams, Aristophanes to Amy Schumer, Monty Python to the Marx Brothers to Moliere and so many more, few things are more universal than comedy and laughter. As Mary Poppins so rightly says, we all “Love to Laugh,” and rightfully so. The health benefits of laughter are well documented, as is the social feeling of inclusion that comes with sharing a joke with someone.
You may also enjoy our video about laughter.
Laughter feels not just universal but wonderfully human, and that intuition isn’t too far off. As the BBC has reported, laughter as we know it is, thus far, something only detected in humans and a few fellow primates such as chimpanzees. Hamlet may be one of the best-known tragic characters in world literature, but in answering his immortal question “what a piece of work is a man,” laughter may well take center stage in developing an answer.
But why do we laugh? What’s the science and sociology behind it? And what does our ability to laugh say about us as a species?
As the saying goes, explaining a joke tends to drain it of its humor — but let’s take a crack at cracking the code behind why we laugh anyway.
What Happens Physically When You Laugh?
One of the most intriguing things about laughter is the fact that it involves a unique combination of mental and physical actions. We describe people as “howling” or “doubling over” with laughter, while a really good joke is referred to as a “knee-slapper.” These are just some of the physical descriptions of laughter, but what really happens physically when you laugh?
Let’s start deep within the brain. While discussions of right vs. left brain activity is a hot topic among neurologists and psychologists alike, both hemispheres as well as your frontal lobe are responsible for allowing you to process information in such a way as to recognize humor. The left side of the brain, which deals with language and logic, helps determine the structure and nature of a joke. The right side of your brain, which deals more heavily with creativity and emotion, decides whether the joke is “funny” or not.
Your limbic system, which processes our most immediate guttural reactions such as “hunger” or “fear,” also gets in on the act. Your motor function, meanwhile, is responsible for actually signaling the laughter itself. Once those centers of your brain have identified something funny and your motor function calls for laughter, certain other physical phenomena take place, such as increased blood flow. This is also what causes you to “double over” or “howl” with laughter, or allows for any number of physical responses to whatever your brain finds funny.
Why does all of this happen? That’s a question that everyone from scientists to sociologists to philosophers continues to debate. The fact that human beings and primates are the only ones who laugh and the deep connection we see between laughter and various parts of the brain would seem to point to it being related on some level to the development of our brains.
Even so, while we can explain the cause and effect of our physical and mental reasons for laughter, the deeper underlying reasons for laughter’s existence as a phenomena continue to pose questions. Laughter is commonly seen as a response to social phenomena, for example, and the idea of being “in on the joke” is a great way of demonstrating that you are part of a group. That said, this poses something of a Chicken or Egg conundrum — do societies create the social conditions necessary for laughter, or do the mental processes activated by laughter help us form the kind of bonds necessary for building societies?
A great joke may be a knee-slapper, but the reason why that’s so remains a head-scratcher.
Health Benefits to Laughter
We’ve all heard the saying “laughter is the best medicine,” and without taking anything from modern medicine, there’s some scientific evidence to back up what seems like basic intuition in thinking that laughter is good for you.
Some of the health benefits which can stem from a good case of the giggles include the following:
● Relaxation: Laughter relaxes you mentally and physically. A good case of laughter can help loosen up your muscles for up to 45 minutes, while the University of Waterloo found that people with a strong sense of humor to be less prone to bouts of depression and anxiety.
● A Boost to Your Immune System: Not only is laughter a good way to relax your body, but it can actually provide some mild help in helping fight infection and disease. When you laugh, your body produces fewer stress hormones as per the relaxation described above. It instead produces, among other things, T-cells and antibodies, which boost your body’s ability to fight disease and infection.
● A Release of Endorphins: When you laugh, your body releases more of these chemicals, which are commonly associated with positive feelings and reinforcing good actions.
● Increased Pain Tolerance: Connected with the release of endorphins when you laugh is your body’s pain tolerance increasing.
● More Calories Burned: Let’s be clear — you aren’t going to laugh your way to winning “The Biggest Loser.” That said, there is ample evidence to suggest that laughter can indeed help you burn calories, with the University of Vanderbilt finding that 10 to 15 minutes’ worth of laughter can help you burn as much as 40 calories. What’s more, as reported by Bustle, Dr. William Fry, who teaches psychiatry at the University of Stanford, has compared a solid minute of sustained laughter to 10 minutes of rowing exercise.
● Brain Boost: As demonstrated, laughter is a deeply interconnected mental process. It seems only fitting, therefore, that there is evidence to suggest that laughter can help with memory. Whether you’re laughing over one of Oscar Wilde’s witticisms, tee-hee-ing at Tina Fey, or snorting at the antics of the Three Stooges, your brain will remember more as a result.
● Tears: Those tears you shed when a massive laughing fit hits you can actually be quite therapeutic.
● Continuing to Laugh: It shouldn’t come as a surprise that once you’ve started laughing, the parts of your brain responsible for the laughter are more suggestible to finding even more things funny, thus continuing the process — health benefits and all.
Why Do We Cry When We Laugh?
As mentioned above, there are many physical reactions that come with laughter, with one of the most violently rapturous being laughing until you’re at the point of tears. Given the fact that we otherwise associate tears with moments of great tragedy, it’s fascinating that they should be likewise provoked in moments of intense hilarity. What’s behind this? Why do we laugh so hard we cry, and why are two of life’s most intense yet polarized emotional moments marked by the shared shedding of tears?
This is yet another aspect of laughter which has yet to be fully explained.
That said, there are theories as to why this occurs, with Dr. Oriana R. Aragón of Yale suggesting that it has a strong tie to emotion. That itself may seem obvious, but what is more fascinating is what she has to say about phenomena such as nervous laughter or laughter which provokes tears.
Dr. Aragón describes these cases as being “dimorphous expressions,” by which she means that while we’re laughing, the brain is trying to figure out what it should do with this intense emotional input. In this view, the crying part of laughing ‘till you cry is tied to the body’s attempt to restore a sense of homeostasis. Crying has long been seen as a form of emotional catharsis by cultures around the world. While we tend to think of the therapeutic side of shedding tears as being linked with tragedy (i.e., crying at a sad movie), as this research demonstrates, it may be possible that laughter-provoked years may count toward this as well.
That link may not be as strange as it seems. There is some research which suggests that laughter and crying are controlled by the same region of the brain. One example of this at work, the Pseudobulbar Affect, has shown people who have certain neurological conditions to experience intense bursts of laughter or crying when presented with similar stimuli.
There are other theories as to why laughter can l move one to tears. For example, some scientists focus not on the mental side of things but the physical, asserting that the pressure exerted on the tear ducts by the muscles responsible for a strong bout of laughter can provoke tears. That said, scientists also differentiate between “reflex tears,” such as those provoked by physical stimuli such as this, and “emotional tears.”
As such, it may be possible that both of these explanations contribute to us being moved to laughter.
What Triggers Laughter?
But then what moves us to laughter in the first place? As that same BBC article notes, laughter isn’t something of which we’re fully in control.
We all laugh for different reasons, with everything from witty Austenian one-liners to Charlie Chaplin’s silent slapstick comedy being capable of triggering a giggle fit. That said, there is some evidence to suggest that the comedy of silent legends such as Chaplin may have reigned before its wordier counterparts. Research suggests that laughter may have developed as far back as two to four million years ago, before the advent of language.
On this model, laughter is thought to have arisen as a shared survival trait among early bands of humans and primates looking to avoid predators. In this view, laughter signaled that danger levels were low and that the group was safe. Just as you mentally and physically loosen up when you laugh, so too might laughter have signaled to the group that it was OK to loosen up as a whole, which could help signal that it was safe to socialize.
What’s more, just as Austen’s searing witticisms are often used to draw sharp distinctions between who is and isn’t part of her characters’ rigid societal cliques, so too might laughter have been used as a way of demonstrating social bonding and in-group vs. outsider mentality.
Can Laughter Kill You?
Let’s return to Mary Poppins for a moment. Those who know the film know that Mr. Banks is forced to choose between his loyalty to the bank and his family, ultimately siding with the latter. In the face of professional disgrace and having finally learned his lesson about what really matters most in life, he demonstrates his defiance by repeating a joke about “a man with a wooden leg named Smith.” The old head of the bank, to the shock of everyone, breaks out in uncontrollable laughter — and, we’re told at the end, “died laughing.”
Is this really possible? While the film frames this in a lighthearted manner, can one of life’s most joyous experiences lead to one of its most tragic moments?
The simple answer here is that no, laughter alone can’t kill you, so you can watch your favorite Seinfeld reruns or Ellen DeGeneres and Eddie Murphy standup specials without fear
that laughing will lead you to breath your last.
That said, there is some truth to the idea that an extremely violent laughing fit may cause one or more conditions which could, in theory, send you tee-hee-ing to the grave.
Among the morbid possibilities for mortally-funny laughing fits are as follows:
● Brain Aneurysm: These occur when a great deal of pressure forms in one or more arteries within the brain. Aneurysms are notorious for being difficult to diagnose, with some going unnoticed and eventually rupturing, causing bleeding within the brain and potentially death. While it is theoretically possible that an incredibly severe laughing fit could build up enough pressure to lead to this, the chances of this happening are so slim as to be, well, laughable.
● Asthma Attack: Once again, it isn’t as though this is likely to happen. Still, if you have a severe case of asthma and pair that with an especially laughing fit, it is possible that you may suffer an attack. That is due in part to the fact that natural laughter can cause your larynx to close somewhat, so an especially extreme case of that in an asthma sufferer could lead to a condition where it is difficult for the unfortunate humor-struck person to breathe.
● Seizures: A certain type of seizure known as gelastic seizure originates in the hypothalamus and can be triggered by laughter. Even less funny is the fact that these potentially laughter-activated seizures can be the sign of a tumor. While these tumors are typically benign, malignant tumors are still possible.
● Syncope: While characters such as Austen’s Marianne in Sense and Sensibility suffer fainting fits as a result of severe distress, it’s possible to have one as the result of laughter as well. That’s because fainting is caused by a lack of blood flow to the brain. While laughter typically boosts blood flow, it can also lower your blood pressure. As such, an especially heavy bout of laughter could theoretically trigger a fainting fit, which in turn could trigger cardiac arrest.
Is Laughter Contagious?
Now that we’ve pointed out the theoretical possibility of dying as the result of laughter, now is clearly the perfect time to ask whether laughter is contagious.
And the answer is of course it is!
Chances are you’ve heard of Ivan Pavlov and his dogs who, upon hearing the sound of a dinner bell, were trained to have their salivary glands activated as their brains connected the auditory information with the concept that they were about to receive food. As it turns out, laughter in humans may work similarly. Researchers for University College London have demonstrated that the brain, upon recognizing the sound of laughter, prepares the muscles which are used for laughter.
One possible reason for this put forward by the research team is the body’s desire to reinforce positive over negative emotions. They found that people sometimes smiled or laughed upon hearing laughter, but when exposed to sounds of gagging did not gag along.
And really, who wouldn’t prefer being triggered by a humorous gag over actual gagging?
The Laughing Epidemic of Tanganyika
Let’s close our look at laughter with a truly bizarre occurrence.
Deep in the heart of modern-day Tanzania in 1962 occurred an event so odd that it has gone down in history as one of the strangest laughing-related incidents of all-time. What began as a few girls laughing at a girl’s school spread throughout an entire community, affecting hundreds and resulting in the closure of fourteen schools.
This is a case of what is known as a psychogenic illness or, in layman’s terms, mass hysteria at work. As occurred in Tanganyika in 1962, the condition tends to spread from a few at-risk individuals, with risk factors including severe distress or anxiety. More vitally, this is not a case of the Placebo Effect at work — those suffering from psychogenic illnesses really do suffer from symptoms such as severe headaches and dizziness, and do indeed require immediate medical care.
While incidents such as these are no laughing matter, and its ultimate cause remains obscured, laughter on the whole remains our great unifying in-joke.
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