The science of laughter

“Some day, all of a sudden, we wake up and realise the laughter has died; drowned out by the world barking orders at us”


Speaker’s Corner
Denise Horan

LAST week, a US academic told a gathering in UCC that laughing can do just as much for a person’s health as a mini-workout. Twenty seconds of intense laughter, Dr Bill Fry told his audience, can double the heart rate for three to five minutes, something that would normally require a bout of rigorous exercise to achieve.
How timely his lecture was, coming in the midst of the greatest period of prescribed depression in generations. It was also a lucky break for the civic-minded night editor of the Irish Times last Thursday week who took the opportunity to do his or her bit to lift the mood of the nation by putting it on the front page.
‘There is a symbiotic relationship between health and humour,’ Dr Fry continued, noting that in all his years of study he only ever came across three people who died while laughing.
Following Dr Fry’s confirmation of the long- and widely-held suspicion that laughter doesn’t kill, maybe we should now consider indulging in it a little more. Did we really need him – or the Irish Times on his behalf – to tell us that laughter is good for us? Hardly. We all know that smiling and laughing, joking and play-acting are all not only potentially good for us, but in fact essential to our wellbeing. Yet, unless we take time to remind ourselves, we can quickly forget how gently the therapeutic hand of humour lies on our stressed-out minds and weary limbs. How sweet and powerful an antidote it is to the drudgery of some parts, or phases, of life.
Life is a journey through different phases, each one bringing its joys and its challenges. When we flick back through the mind’s memory reel, we can all easily pick out the phase we most associate with fun and laughter. No matter when it was, the memory doesn’t fade. Maybe it was school, when our still-maturing personality led us down a path that seems mildly delinquent in hindsight but was hilarious when it was happening.
Perhaps it was the new-found freedom of the college years, when living away from home for the first time caused a rebellion of fun that still makes us laugh. It might have been our first love, who introduced us to an irreverent side of ourselves we never knew existed, or our first bunch of work friends who drew out of us a latent wit that was quickly sharpened when it sparked off others.
When we look back on that phase – maybe some have had several such phases – we dance inside. We remember the feeling it brought and the belief that it would last forever. But it didn’t. That damned next phase of our lives came along and spoiled the orgy of fun. Sometimes it’s a while before we miss it, but some day, all of a sudden, we wake up and realise the laughter has died; drowned out by the world barking orders at us.
Instead of mourning its loss, we should work at resuscitating it. We are its only potential saviours; others may help us laugh, but only we can restore it as a feature of our own lives again.
It’s a bit like choosing to take up exercise again after a lengthy trial as a couch potato: you must make a conscious effort to do it at the start, but once the feelgood factor kicks in it’ll become second nature and you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.
I’m not a huge fan of stand-up comedy, because so many comedians mistake crudeness for humour and confuse the human beings they inflict it on with morons. Anyway, there’s enough real life humour all around us – if we keep the laughter valve open. Laughter of the moment, and being open to experiencing it: that’s where the real potential for benefits to the body and the mind lies.
It’s about adopting a lighter approach. Yes, work hard and be good at being serious when you need to be, but take every opportunity that presents itself to be daft, silly and spontaneous. Laugh at those around you, but laugh at yourself too. Be a self-healer.