Laugh And The World Laughs With You
Why intentional laughter provides immediate relief from anxiety and stress
My Zoom gallery looks like a revamped Hollywood Squares set, filled with eager faces from across the country. As host, I review the litany of crises facing the nation that week; wildfires, hurricanes, Afghanistan, Texas abortion law. Ending with the horrifying spread of the Delta variant. In minutes, we’re all roaring with laughter.
How could we be so callous? No matter what our personal beliefs or political affiliation, we can all agree there’s nothing funny about COVID. Humor falls flat given the staggering amount of serious illness and death and the bitter divisiveness over vaccines. But there’s a treatment for our fear and anxiety that requires only small doses: intentional laughter. Yes, laughing on purpose.
Five years ago, to help me relieve stress and instantly shift mood, I trained to become a Laughter Yoga Leader, a term people find puzzling. How do fits of mirth integrate with downward dogs and sun salutations? In laughter yoga, there are neither poses nor jokes. Deep diaphragmatic breathing that’s central to yoga is also a byproduct of intense laughter. And intentional laughter is rooted in focused group exercises, not comedy.
Science shows that the body doesn’t know the difference between humor-based or intentional, laughter is laughter: benefits are the same. Talk about a magic elixir — laughing increases oxygen intake, stimulates circulation, lowers our heart rate and blood pressure, boosts our immune system and releases feel-good brain chemicals such as serotonin, oxytocin and endorphins. If someone told us there was a drug that did all this and had no harmful side effects, we’d be lining up for an injection.
People’s initial reactions to the concept of intentional laughter is that laughing is something you engage in spontaneously for enjoyment or entertainment. Without humor, it seems silly or embarrassing. I’ve led laughter groups in both social and corporate settings and found that while participants have to first be convinced to “fake it ’til you make it,” once the activities begin, the merriment becomes infectious. That’s a scary word these days, but laughing together is the best kind of contagious.
After reading the latest articles about how a steady diet of dread and worry over COVID impacts our mental health, especially depression, I pondered hosting a virtual laugh session. Then came a week of bad news overwhelm and I felt a new urgency to reach out to friends, and family, inviting them to take a break from the emotional fatigue and helplessness of our current emergencies to share 10–15 minutes of intentional laughter.
I had no idea how it would translate online, but desperate times call for desperate measures. While a few participants had done a group session with me before, most were first timers. We started with smiling. Just moving those few facial muscles sends a signal to our brain that releases tiny molecules called neuropeptides to help fight off stress. One of the great losses in this crisis is that wearing masks for protection has robbed us of the joy of seeing each other smile. As we looked around our screens at all the happy faces, underlying tensions began to melt away.
After basic chuckles and chortles, like singers warming up, we try two of my favorites. First, we look at imaginary credit card bills, and within seconds, come roars of laughter at the money we owe. Next, we pretend to hold a phone to our ears while someone tells the funniest joke we’ve heard in ages. Shrieking with laughter, some participants now wipe away tears. Our collective angst disappears as we float on waves of elation. After just ten minutes, we’re exhausted and exhilarated.
In the debrief, one person said without having to think about whether something was funny, she couldn’t believe how fast her laughter switch flipped on. Another said he hadn’t laughed that hard in what felt like years. A participant who works in Democratic politics in Florida, shared that it affected him profoundly. Over the last 19 months, he’d been on thousands of Zoom calls and never was there an ounce of laughter. Proof that hilarity can temporarily relieve even Sunshine State insanity.
Was the online session as powerful as in person? No. There’s no way of duplicating the energy of a tornado of group glee. We missed out on high-fives, hugs and looking directly into someone’s eyes. But we still got to take a timeout from the constant undercurrent of distress and unease, and with no masks or aerosol droplets involved, we experienced the restorative power of pure, unfiltered joy.
Smiling, giggling and guffawing will not protect you from the coronavirus, nor ease the dilemma over whether to get vaccinated for the first or third time. But it when it comes to immediate relief for communal pain, intentional laughter is serious medicine — a no-brainer booster for surviving a pandemic.
