Laughter is an innate form of expression and a natural reflex for stress reduction and overall health of the individual. The brain reflexively responds to sensory stimuli during laughter with commands to contract specific muscles. Laughter in inadequate situations can have disease value and indicate mental disorders.
What is laughter?
Laughter is an innate form of expression and a natural reflex for stress reduction and overall health of the individual. Laughter is an innate bodily reflex and a natural form of expression that is unique to humans in this form. Laughter corresponds either to a reflexive reaction to exhilarating situations or to a reflexive defensive behavior. Impending social conflicts and states of anxiety, for example, can be mitigated by laughter. It is assumed that laughter originally corresponded to a threatening gesture for the demonstration of strength, as also expressed by animals through snarling. Within a human community, however, laughter always had and still has a unifying function. Laughter as a body reflex takes place involuntarily as soon as the sensory nerves pass on a stimulus to the brain. From the brain, this sensory stimulus is transmitted to the nerve endings of certain muscles. As a result of this reflex transmission, the laugh muscles are contracted. In a sense, this contraction is a compensatory reflex to certain sensations. Unlike many other reflexes, laughter can be restrained to a large extent by self-control. On the other hand, the reflex movement easily results in an involuntary spasm known as a laughing spasm.
Function and task
Laughter relieves stress. It is used for communication, group formation, and at times even as a weapon. Strong sensory stimuli are stress for the body. This stress can be reduced by laughter. Through laughter, a person also unmistakably and non-verbally demonstrates his current emotional state. However, he can also weaken a negative emotional state through laughter. Laughing together with other people creates a bond. Laughing as a group, however, often gives individuals outside the group a sense of threat. Accordingly, laughter has many different functions and effects. However, the process in the body remains largely the same. When laughing, it is mainly the breathing movement that changes. Exhalation takes place in rapid successive jerking movements. Inhalation, on the other hand, takes place in accelerated and deep puffs. The air breathed thus reaches almost 100 km/h in the lungs. Three to four times more oxygen enters the lungs in this way. The brain triggers this breathing movement reflexively in response to sensory stimuli. In addition, it sends contraction commands to the facial muscles. The oral fissure thus widens and the corners of the mouth lift due to contractions of the zygomatic muscle. The eyebrows are also raised, the nostrils flare, and the eyes narrow. The vocal cords are vibrated during laughter and the diaphragm is moved rhythmically. Like any emotional situation, laughter can stimulate the tear glands, which then release tears of laughter. In all, the laugh reflex causes 17 mimic muscles and a total of about 80 body muscles to contract. However, the leg and bladder muscles are relaxed during these contractions. This is the origin of the expression that one pees one’s pants with laughter. As a consequence of the change in breathing, blood circulation is stimulated during laughter and the pulse increases. Laughter thus strengthens the cardiovascular system. The immune system also benefits from laughing fits. After a laughing fit, there are measurably more killer cells in the blood, which protect people from viruses in particular. The immunoglobulin concentration also increases. These protein bodies help above all to prevent infections caused by injuries. Laughter thus increases the body’s defenses. Stress hormones decrease. Happy hormones such as endorphins are released and relaxation sets in. In addition, laughter stimulates digestion. By producing happy hormones and anti-inflammatory body substances, laughter additionally relieves pain.
Diseases and ailments
Despite their actually health-promoting effects, strong laughing fits can also turn into the health-threatening realm. If there is food or liquid in the mouth during a laughing fit, these substances are often inhaled.Headaches are also frequently described in connection with laughing fits, probably due to abnormal breathing. Just as often as headaches, hematomas occur in the rectus abdominis muscle during extreme laughing attacks. In isolated cases, pneumothorax has been observed in the lungs. For people with cardiac arrhythmias, laughing spasms can even be fatal under certain circumstances. Despite these risks, laughter is still considered healthy overall, since the complications and complaints mentioned above occur very rarely overall. For these reasons, laughter is still frequently used as part of treatment methods today. In some hospital pediatric wards, for example, clowns make the young patients laugh, contributing to a faster recovery – also because a healthy psyche promotes physical health. Actual laughter therapy sometimes takes place as part of psychotherapeutic treatments. In this way, psychotherapists sometimes try to reduce their patients’ anxiety. In particular, patients with chronic illnesses are often advised to undergo laughter therapy. On the other hand, laughter itself may also have disease value and initially prompt consultation with a psychotherapist. Indeed, for some mental disorders, abnormal laughter behavior is an indicator. Schizoaffective disorders, for example, can manifest themselves in a regular laughing reflex at sad news and a crying fit in funny situations. These phenomena are also called inadequate affect. At what point inadequate affect actually refers to an illness can only be assessed in the individual case and thus in the context of the personality and experiences of the affected person.
