Just for the fun of it!

In our webinar “Laughing for Levity” participants were guided through laughing for no reason other than for the fun of it and because it makes us feel good. People described the feeling of laughing as “freeing, joyous, energising”, saying it made them feel happy and relaxed.

We talked about using laughter as an ice-breaker in the workplace, and whether using laughter at the beginning of a meeting would make the meeting more productive, potentially enhancing creativity. Participants felt that the boost in mood which followed laughter, together with the more relaxed atmosphere generated through having shared laughter together would lead to improved engagement and energy at work. They felt that when people were happier at work then productivity would be boosted.

The contagion effect of laughter is well-documented. Seeing, hearing and sensing people laughing together makes us want to join in, whether we know why people are laughing or not. Humans are biologically hard-wired to laugh together. Children laugh a lot more than adults. Grown-ups tend to take life more seriously than children and spontaneous laughter tails off in adulthood. Perhaps then we need to look deliberately for laughter and not leave it to chance.

Listening to laughter can put a smile on our faces. Hearing children laugh is something which people frequently point to as a mood-lifter. One of the great things about technology is that we can now access the sound of laughter and different types of laughter from the comfort of our own homes. Making a habit of watching comedy has been used in medical research as an adjunct therapy in cardiac rehabilitation. In their study, Tan et al., (2007) split people into two groups after they had suffered a heart attack. One group had treatment as usual, while another group watched 30 minutes of self-selected comedy each day for the year following their heart attack. The group who watched comedy were found to have fewer heart attacks and lower blood pressure than the group who did not regularly expose themselves to humour.

However, humour is not necessary to produce laughter. Most laughter is social in nature and occurs in the company of others. We laugh more with people we know. Shared laughter acts as social glue, building and strengthening relationships. This is one of the reasons that team-building exercises tend to be designed to be fun for the participants. When people are having fun together then they feel drawn towards the people they are having fun with. This leads to a more cohesive team.

There are many influences on the production of laughter. Some barriers are internally constructed, for example taking oneself seriously; other barriers are external, for example the appropriateness of laughter in the specific situation. Research has demonstrated that laughing boost mood, buffers stress and builds social connection. A huge study in Japan (Sakurada et al., 2020) has linked increased frequency of laughter to better cardiac health and even longevity. It is clear that frequent laughter is good for our health so let’s look for levity and laughter day in and day out – just for the fun of it.

Sakurada, K., Konta, T., Watanabe, M., Ishizawa, K., Ueno, Y., Yamashita, H., & Kayama, T. (2020). Associations of frequency of laughter with risk of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular disease incidence in a general population: Findings From the Yamagata Study. Journal of Epidemiology, 30(4), 188–193. https://doi.org/10.2188/jea.JE20180249

Tan, S. A., Tan, L. G., Lukman, S. T., & Berk, L. S. (2007). Humor, as an adjunct therapy in cardiac rehabilitation, attenuates catecholamines and myocardial infarction recurrence. Advances in mind-body medicine, 22(3-4), 8–12.