Why laughter is truly the best medicine

By John Gloster-Smith and Akasha Lonsdale

Published in "Stress News", January 2007, Vol 19 No 1, by the International Stress Management Association

The news this summer was that the government was looking into ways to make us happier. As the BBC programme “The Happiness Formula” in May 2006 showed, happiness levels in Britain are falling. In fact the proportion of people saying they are very happy has fallen from 52% in1957 to just 36% today, despite huge increases in income. As professionals in the Stress arena, you will no doubt be well aware of the statistics that show increasingly serious levels of stress being experienced by people. So the news about happiness levels is unlikely to be a surprise.

What research has tended to show, is that there are certain key factors that contribute to happiness.  As the major publicist of Positive Psychology, Dr. Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania has determined that three components stand out: pleasure (the “smiley-face piece”), engagement (the depth of involvement with family, work, romance and hobbies) and meaning (using personal strengths to serve some larger end). Seligman says that engagement and meaning are particularly important. Other researchers have pointed to bondedness with friends, family and loved ones as a major contributor.

So, if we look at laughter as one manifestation of happiness, it turns out that it’s not something we tend to do alone.  “It is a tool of communication” says Robert Provine of the University of Maryland.  Also laughter is infectious, once one person starts, others quickly follow (very difficult if someone gets the giggles in the middle of something that’s meant to be deadly serious.)  When we laugh with others, we feel more connected to them – it’s part of our bonding.

But what has been happening to laughter and why is it so important? What does laughter have to tell us about our happiness – and our wellbeing?

Well, laughter is generally considered to be an essential behaviour of a happy, joyful person whilst lack of laughter contributes to anxiety, depression, and illness. In today’s society, as with happiness in general, we seem to have forgotten how to laugh. Dr. Michael Titze, a German psychologist tells us that,

·         In the 1950’s people used to laugh 18 minutes a day, but today we laugh not more than 6 minutes a day, despite the huge rise in the standard of living

·         Children can laugh up to 300-400 times a day, but when we grow up to be adults this frequency comes down to less than 15 times a day, if at all.

So why has laughter declined? The answers will not surprise you.  Here’s a few reminders. First there’s the stress of living in a fast world, which is increasingly dominated by anxiety and fear. Telecommunications have made bad news instantly accessible to millions, thus accentuating the anxiety and fear. People are working long hours, under pressure to move fast. Transport is congested. Cities are crowded. Divorce and family break-ups are high.  So negative stress levels are constantly on the increase.

Many people live in the past, feeling guilty or resentful whilst others worry about the future.  Often the cause of perceived difficulties is attributed to something or someone else.  So we don’t take true responsibility and find it hard to live in the moment – which of course is where laughter occurs.

Happiness is perceived as conditional on external factors and becomes part of the “more, bigger, better” syndrome and the pursuit of certain things in order to be happy, which if successful results in a cycle of immediate fulfilment followed by dissatisfaction and a renewed wanting that leaves a lingering feeling of “what I have is not enough”. This becomes a  repetitive feeling that “I have not got what I want, something is still missing.  If only I could…..or …..when I ……..”.  Addiction to desire is seen as one of the most fundamental barriers to human contentment and is all-pervasive in today’s society.

Laughter is seen as dependent on a “sense of humour”: we believe we must have a reason to laugh, that laughter is about laughing “at” something or somebody else, that it only happens on certain occasions and that it depends on “one’s sense of humour” ie. it is dependent on external stimuli or a belief you have about your personality.

However, major hope is now available. As a result of research in both East and West, people are increasingly realising that laughter is something that can be spontaneously created and need not be dependent on anything. In fact you can laugh for no reason at all. Authentic laughter is an energy that wells up from within. It is something that occurs spontaneously, without a reason, resulting in the experience often called joyfulness.

People might have lost it but it is perfectly possible to help them get it back. People can be taught to laugh for no reason, to discover their own innate capacity to experience their own well-spring of laughter and joy. You do not have to be happy or have a “sense of humour” or even have a reason to laugh. You do not have to be constrained by your social conditioning.

We are talking here about a simple technique that has proved so powerful that it has become a world-wide phenomenon, after being introduced in India by a medical doctor, Dr. Madan Kataria, to help people manage the stress of life in Mumbai.  Dr. Kataria was so concerned about this issue that one day he went out into a park and asked as many people as he could to join him in an instant laughter club. Eventually he managed to persuade 4 people to join him. As others watched in initial bemusement, they took it in turns to tell jokes. As we have seen, laughter is infectious. Others started to join and soon he had 50 people in his club.

Unfortunately they ran out of jokes after two weeks and then two women complained because the humour had become sexist and rude. To rescue his new idea, and this was the crucial breakthrough, Dr Kataria turned to the idea of laughter exercises to help people to fake laughter, to “fake it till you make it”. That worked a treat! He also turned to his wife, a yoga teacher, and borrowed from yoga some of its deep breathing, which he adapted to simple breathing exercises to support people’s ability to sustain the laughter beneficially. Laughter Yoga was born, his club recovered and soon the park was attracting large numbers to pre-work laughter sessions. It proved so popular that it spread, first all round India and now across the globe