Should I Consider Laughter Therapy?

Celebrating our goofy side is lots of fun, but proponents of this approach claim that it has both physical and mental health benefits, too.

There is some serious science behind the phrase “laughing is the best medicine”. Endorphins are known as happy hormones and are released into the bloodstream when we laugh, much as exercise may provide a similar mood elevation.

Curious about the health advantages of laughing, Dr. Madan Kataria established the Madan Kataria Laughter Club in Mumbai in 1995. He called all of his tiny laughing therapy group members together in one of the city’s public parks to swap hilarious tales and jokes. After hearing all the laughing, others began to gather around, increasing the group’s size from five to fifty.

Dr. Kataria theorized that although patients couldn’t have any more tales to share, the act of laughing alone could help them. Eventually, he began to encourage the group to make the laughing noises until it had the same effect on them as it had on the rest of the class. Laughing yoga, which is practiced in groups all around the globe, has evolved into an approach called laughter yoga.

How difficult is it?

During normal laughter yoga sessions, you will do exercises including deep breathing, stretches, and group activities that will help you get in the laughing mood. The teacher may urge you to remember a humorous story, play out various kinds of laughing, or look away awkwardly to see who may crack so that someone else in the group could have a chuckle. This fake-it-till-you-make-it method is intended to get people to ultimately produce genuine laughing, even if they don’t feel it at first.

What does Laughter Therapy do for me?

In addition to reducing stress, laughter helps alleviate tension and relaxes muscles, helping us rest before bed. There is some evidence to support the claim that it also improves our immune system and helps us get more oxygen into our bodies, boosting energy levels. While laughing may make your stomach ache, it can provide a pleasant way to increase your overall cardiovascular fitness.

Is there any science behind it?

Loads. Laughter, which has shown advantages to physical and mental health, started being studied in the late 1970s by Dr. Lee Berk, an assistant professor of Health Promotion and Education at Loma Linda University in California. He found that laughing may decrease the hormone cortisol’s impact on the body. Furthermore, in a study done by Berk, it was shown that laughing boosted levels of white blood cells known as natural killer cells, which fight against infections and cancer cells to keep the body healthy. Since there has been a lot of studies to show that laughing has various health advantages, we may assume laughter is good for us.

Eliminating feelings of nervousness

When volunteers in laboratory research were made to think that they would get an electric shock after 12 minutes, several of them suffered extreme anxiety and distress. They remained in place as they waited for the jarring event to occur. They were entertained either by a humorous recording, one that was amusing, or no recording at all, while anxiety-measuring pens were used. While the listeners who listened to the humorous audio assessed themselves as less nervous than the other two groups, those who didn’t listen to the funny tape rated themselves as more anxious.

Reducing the risk of general disease

Research published in 2014 examined the overall health of 38 male nursing students who participated in laughing yoga sessions. Half of the participants were allocated to laughing yoga for one hour each week, whereas the other half did not receive any intervention. Laughter yoga improved the overall health of the participants, leading to improvements in various sleep problems, anxiety, and sadness. Keep in mind that these findings have only been studied on males.

Understanding and controlling menopause

Laughter therapy was studied in 2012 as a means of promoting women’s well-being as they entered menopause. Participants received five 30-minute sessions of laughing therapy, as well as findings from a control group, which were assessed to see how effective laughter therapy was. The surveys showed that a set of questionnaires found that laughing therapy helped improve optimism and self-esteem in menopausal women, while also reducing sadness.