Laughing brings joy, helps boost your mood and energy, can help you connect with others, and generally just feels nice; but there’s actually more to it than just the simple reaction to happiness that many of us understand on a surface level. Laughter can have a multitude of benefits, effects on your body, and more that we don’t even know about or notice happening.
In fact, we’re here today to tell you all about some things you probably don’t know about laughter from your own life or learning. Here are some things you didn’t know about laughter that may surprise you to learn in this list!
Group Activity
It’s been shown that we’re up to 30 times more likely to laugh when we are with others versus when we are laughing alone, and laughing in a group can last longer and be more connecting as well. Laughter can bring people together over a common thought or joke and it’s even easier to do when you do so with other people around you.
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Exercise Reaction
In actuality, laughing can cause a reaction within your body quite similar to exercise. Some people even participate in what’s called “laughing yoga” where they solely laugh for most of the supposed workout. This is because a laugh can raise your heart rate and blood pressure similar to exercise, and can burn calories to laugh for long periods of time.
Endorphin Help
Endorphins are the brain chemical that can fight stress and boost your mood and energy levels, they’re released from a variety of things but mainly anything that you enjoy doing like laughing. Laughter can release endorphins in your body which will combat whatever stress hormones and chemicals you may have in your body as well as improve your mood (but we know about mood).
Laughter Machine
On average, adults laugh around 15-30 times in a day, which is generally averaged to be less in men than in women by a slight amount. However, babies actually laugh an average of 300 times in a single day! That’s quite a bit higher, and interesting to know considering the health and brain benefits that laughter can have.
Surprise Tickling
The sensation that comes from tickles causes laughter and bodily reactions for most of us, but tickling yourself doesn’t cause the same reactions. Why does it work that way? Well, your brain actually needs to be surprised by the tickling for it to be effective. And when you tickle yourself your mind is already predicting or knowing what you’re doing, so you don’t react the same.
While we definitely can agree that laughter is beneficial for our mental wellbeing by giving us a break from stress, bringing good times, and more; there’s much more than meets the eye that you can learn like this list of things you didn’t know about laughter. You can keep these interesting tidbits in mind when you find yourself laughing or making someone else laugh in the future, or even share them with friends and family to give others a nice learning experience on something that often occurs daily for many of us out there. Either way, hopefully at least one of these facts were new to you today and helped you learn something intriguing about our laughter.