We’re talking side-splitting, spittle-spraying, I-can’t breathe laughter here. For some people, hearing a friend wryly recount how they almost face-planted on the sidewalk might do it. Others might take a more antagonistic approach, preferring jokes that involve insulting someone else. Then there are just some things that almost anyone would find funny, like the recent viral mishap where a lawyer unwittingly appeared as a kitten during a virtual court proceeding. Different people find different things humorous.
This phrase is one of the few that is derived from the Bible. In the book of Proverbs, Chapter 17, verse 22 which reads that “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones”. So laughter is the best medicine was coined from the first part of the verse as being merry is associated with being happy and lots of laughter.
It’s well understood that humor can have powerful impacts on both our physical and mental health. The idea that laughter is the best medicine has been around since biblical times. In his 1905 book, Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, Sigmund Freud argued that humor is the highest of the psyche’s defense mechanisms, capable of turning anxiety into pleasure.
In modern society, fierce competition and socioeconomic interaction stress the quality of life, causing a negative influence on a person’s mental health. Laughter is a positive sensation and seems to be a useful and healthy way to overcome stress. Laughter therapy is a kind of cognitive-behavioral therapies that could make physical, psychological, and social relationships healthy, ultimately improving the quality of life. Laughter therapy, as a non-pharmacological, alternative treatment, has a positive effect on the mental health and the immune system. In addition, laughter therapy does not require specialized preparations, such as suitable facilities and equipment, and it is easily accessible and acceptable. For these reasons, the medical community has taken notice and attempted to include laughter therapy to more traditional therapies. Decreasing stress-making hormones found in the blood, laughter can mitigate the effects of stress. Laughter decreases serum levels of cortisol, epinephrine, growth hormone, and 3,4 dihydrophenylacetic acid (a major dopamine catabolite), indicating a reversal of the stress response. Depression is a disease, where neurotransmitters in the brain, such as norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin, are reduced, and there is something wrong in the mood control circuit of the brain. Laughter can alter dopamine and serotonin activity.
Furthermore, endorphins secreted by laughter can help when people are uncomfortable or in a depressed mood. Laughter therapy is a noninvasive and non-pharmacological alternative treatment for stress and depression, representative cases that have a negative influence on mental health. In conclusion, laughter therapy is effective and scientifically supported as a single or adjuvant therapy.
Laughter and Depression
The word ‘melancholia’ started to be used by at least B.C. 400, when Hippocrates first recorded and described it. ‘Depression’, typically used synonymously with ‘melancholia’, first began to be used when described it, and that overall depression includes phenomena such as kinetic phenomena occurring as a result of all mental actions, such as mind, mood, and consciousness that feels depression, excitement, and satisfaction, or, more loosely, it refers to the element that occurs to the mind trying to accomplish something and is forcibly oppressed.
Depression has a very high rate of prevalence and is one of the most common mental disorders. It can be defined as the depressed state of the pathological level. That is to say, depression refers to a kind of mental disease where people are seized by a sense of inadequacy, of isolation, of futility and of guilt and suicidal impulse in a depressed mood and in demotivation; it is different from a temporary depressed feeling. A depressed feeling is an emotional response of being sad, hopeless, frustrated, or dispirited, which are almost relieved when situations improve, but depression is a disease, where neurotransmitters in the brain, such as norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin, are reduced and there is something wrong in the mood control circuit of the brain. It is a disease that weakens both mind and body, including physical symptoms, moods, and thoughts. Specifically, when people feel severely down, the symptom can be called depression. It is termed clinical depression when pent-up, inactive, and worried feelings continue for at least 2 weeks, not allowing an individual to lead a normal life. Clinical depression also requires drug treatment; therefore, depression needs to be divided into the general depressed feeling and severe depression. Unlike the temporary depressed feeling, depression does not vary according to the situation and can continue for years if not treated.
Laughter helps people endure stressful processes or situations, reduces depression, helps people judge their problems objectively, and improves problem-solving ability by increasing insight. Therefore, laughter helps people prevents themselves from being influenced by the environment and control themselves. There is also an opinion that laughter is a pleasant stress, which means laughter is a stress that has a positive aspect and gives fresh and powerful energy. Thus, laughter is used to reduce negative cognitive responses and relieves stress. It is reported laughter has the best effect among methods that can relieve stress, and that if we keep practicing even a forced laugh, our body will react to it and become more pleased and healthier. A positive mood can be gained through the forced laugh, and a bad mood, personality, or thought can be changed somewhat into a positive direction. According to the latest precedent studies, reduction in secretion of the neurotransmitters, dopamine and serotonin, is the representative of one of the many causes of depression; therefore, if the secretion of those substances reduces, there will be a disorder in mood control in the brain and depression will develop. However, a positive attitude and forced laughter can help maintain dopamine activity. Furthermore, endorphins secreted by laughter can help when people are uncomfortable or in a depressed mood. Moreover, in a study on the effects of laughter therapy on depression in middle-aged women and their blood serotonin concentration, blood serotonin concentration showed the lowest result in the group with the severest depression. After laughter therapy, serotonin increased in all three groups (the group without depression, with a little depression, and with severe depression) except the control group, and the group with severe depression showed the greatest change. Serotonin is a control hormone, which controls impulsivity and tension to maintain calmness and activate the limbic system, so that it becomes a source of the will to live and vitality. Therefore, it is a substance that acts in opposition to depression. Due to this characteristic, serotonin is drawing people’s attention in its role in healing anxiety, stress, antisocial behavior, and
mental diseases. In particular, serotonin is known to be activated by continuous exercise or yoga. As exercise or yoga increases the positive energy and vitality of the body and activates serotonin in the blood, laughter has a similar influence on adequate exercise or yoga by increasing our pulse and lung capacity and helping the digestive system. Therefore, as it increases blood dopamine and serotonin concentration, laughter therapy may be very effective in reducing depression as a non-pharmacological, alternative treatment.
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