The Science of Laughter: Why It's Medicine & How to Get More of It | MindBody Space Podcast

Okay, so in my last episode, I told you that humor is one of the most important things that you can have in life, and that laughter can change us down to the cellular level. So today I want you to walk away from this episode thinking about your day in a completely different way and wanting to just go out there and make someone else laugh, or make yourself laugh, or find people who make you laugh. Hi, I'm Dr. Juna Bobby MD, host of the Mind Body Space Podcast. I'm a mom, a former neuroscientist and radiologist, now specializing in lifestyle medicine. I'm here to share with you the little mini habits you can apply into your and your family's life so that you can stay healthy, so you can stay successful, organized, adaptable, and resilient. If you haven't already hit that follow button, follow us on Instagram @mindbodyspaceofficial. It's our new account. And we have our brand new planner coming out. We have a little account called Brain Bun Official where we have new plush toys in the works to teach neuroscience to kids. Check out our Resilience Course for Everyone, bespoke programs, wellness programs. For schools and organizations. So now let's talk about laughter. I've always been interested in laughter and making people laugh. As a new kid, oft— you know, I moved around a lot as a little kid, so it was really important for me to make friends, and I would use my sense of humor to do that. I had a couple of one-liner jokes that I would tell in the playground, and the kids would surround me. And yeah, I guess that was my stage. That's how I connected with people when I was the new kid on the block. So when you laugh, laughter is social glue. And your body actually responds in a similar way to laughter than it, as it does to exercise. Your heart rate goes up, your blood pressure rises momentarily, and then it drops below baseline and your core muscles contract. So like that belly laughing and laughter is bringing in air into your lungs. So it's literally an ab workout and your body floods with endorphins. Those are those natural feel-good chemicals, the same ones that kick in after a run, you know, the runner's high, except with laughter. You get that social bonding in there too. Now, laughter obviously is not the same as exercise because it's different in intensity and duration and metabolic effects. So obviously take that with a grain of salt. The great news is that there is research supporting the fact that laughter acutely show improved endothelial function— that's the lining of the, the inner lining of the blood vessels— and arterial compliance, meaning the arteries can stretch and be flexible after watching comedy. And there are longitudinal studies, studies that sh— follow people out over a period of time that show that frequent laughter is associated with lower hypertension risk. In other words, lower risk for high blood pressure, which is great. I love that. There's a researcher named Dr. Lee Burke at Loma Linda University who spent decades studying what he calls mirthful laughter, which is the scientific way a totally not funny way, a saying good genuine laugh. And what he found was remarkable. He showed that it reduces cortisol and epinephrine, the core stress hormones. So studies have shown that watching something funny like a comedy special, people had measurably high levels of immunoglobulin A, which is your antibody in the saliva that is the first line of defense against respiratory infections. They also had higher natural killer cell activity, NK cells, Those are the ones that go after tumor cells and virally infected cells. When someone actually says laugh it off, that's solid medical advice. Laughter actually boosts your immune system. I just wanna add a caveat here that this was a small sample size and the findings are inconsistent. Some of the studies had methodological problems with it. However, generally laughing is a positive emotion, so take it with a grain of salt. Okay, now there are some harmful effects of laughter. For example, if you have asthma or if, if you have excessive laughter, it could cause syncope or cardiac issues. That's very, very rare. Um, hernias, asthma attacks. I'm just telling you this just like, you know, when you see those, uh, commercials for medications, I mean, everything has a side effect and obviously laughter is nowhere near, uh, the amount of side effects, um, medication can have. But yes, excessive laughter can cause hernias, syncope, cardiac issues, asthma attacks, and other complications. So just remember, don't laugh all day long or too hard, too much. And I wanna reiterate that humor is super personal. What is funny to you may not be funny to someone else. So you have to be very careful with who you joke around with. I would probably get to know someone before you joke around with them and get to know them a little bit better. And, uh, yeah, mostly positive though. Humor is mostly positive. There's even research suggesting that the anticipation of laughter, just knowing that something funny is coming up, can reduce our stress hormones. Cuz our bodies react to something before it even happens. That's how our mind-body connection works. Like if we expect something stressful, our bodies start to pump out all those stressful hormones even before something happens. So anticipating laughter, anticipating a funny night, going out to see your favorite comedian is a great way to improve your health. I wanna clarify that the studies were generally anticipation of positive events. So if you think of a comedy show as a positive event, then yes, it would help. Now, a really important part about laughter is that it is usually not a solo activity. I mean, I guess you can make yourself laugh when you're alone, and I, I do that. I sometimes laugh out loud. Recently I was rewatching 30 Rock and I couldn't stop laughing out loud, but you know, I was sitting on the couch with my friends, so that was kind of social bonding. Even then, I wasn't really I'm laughing by myself, I think I laughed out loud more when I'm sitting there on the couch with a friend or a family member than if I was just sitting there alone because it's an ancient primal bonding activity. Humor is like music because when you think about it, humor is like music, crosses language barriers. Humor and laughter is the same in every community. And it just signals to you that you're on the same team, you're safe, and there's nothing to worry about. It's ancient, it's primal. Robert Provine, who is a neuroscientist and a laughter researcher, showed that laughter in conversation isn't even a response to jokes. It's a response to ordinary everyday statements like, you know, or oh gosh, same, hahaha. It's like a punctuation almost, like I get you. And then coming back to what Alice said in the last episode, at comedy clubs, even if you go alone by yourself, the whole room, when it gets a joke, you're laughing together. There's unity, there's something. That feels like binding. It's synchrony, and our nervous systems are aligning with each other. That sense of belonging, that sense of feeling understood is a powerful health promoter. Laughter and connection are the antidotes for everyday loneliness. And loneliness can be if you're alone and not having a lot of friends, but sometimes people feel alone even when they're surrounded by friends and family. Some people who are the most popular, people who have the most friends, sometimes feel very lonely. So the connection with humor and laughter is something that anyone can benefit from. Laughter is also a coping strategy. It's how we survive hard things. Viktor Frankl, the renowned Holocaust survivor and author of Man's Search for Meaning, wrote that humor was one of the few preserving tools available to him in the concentration camps. He actually said that learning to find something to laugh about every single day was part of how he stayed psychologically intact. I think about that a lot as a mom, as a doctor, as someone who talks to people going through hard things. Humor is not about denial. It's not about avoiding pain. It's actually about holding the pain and being able to breathe and bring resilience back into action. That's why people with a good sense of humor tend to have lower anxiety, less depression, even better actual physical pain tolerance. So a sense of humor doesn't have just emotional benefits, it has physical benefits. A sense of humor has been associated with a higher quality of life, even in the face of serious illness. So I always promise you actionable tips. So let's go. Number 1, look for funny people. Who makes you laugh? Like really laugh. Prioritize those relationships. Schedule them into your planner. Hang out with them. Tell me you must hang out with them. Lunch with Maya. She's hilarious. Done. That friend of yours, she or he is medicine. So maybe even treat them. 2, seek live comedy. Alice said it perfectly. Live comedy is different from watching it alone on your couch by yourself. Get out there into these comedy clubs. They're usually sticky a little bit, but it's fun and you don't have to buy 2 drinks. You could buy mocktails now and almost everybody serves zero alcohol beer. I even have my favorite Guinness has an alcohol-free Guinness. Like Alice said, if you can't find someone to go with, just go alone. It's fine. You just sitting there watching somebody on stage. Trying to make you laugh. And along that same line of thinking, develop your own sense of humor. And lately I've been watching so many fun comedies, rewatching 30 Rock, I told you before. And on Spotify, there's a lot of albums now, like stand-up comedian albums. I've been listening to Jim Gaffigan. Who's the other one? Okay, let me look at my phone. Who was it? Oh my gosh, I just have to go right here onto my Spotify list and tell you who I'm listening to right now because I have menopause brain. And also it's really hard to like talk to a camera and read off and remember what you're going to say. So I've been listening to Jerry Seinfeld, Nate Bargatze, and Jim Gaffigan. These guys have been making me laugh. And of course I do also listen to— what's his name? And of course John Mulaney, one of my favorites. When you're picking up the kids or running your errands, just put on that. I mean, comedy does take some attention, but I think it's a perfect companion to driving because you can listen to comedy and drive at the same time. There are some things cognitively, if you have to focus, you might not be able to catch onto the comedy because comedy really is an intellectual exercise. You have to get it. You have to pay attention. All right. So number 3, create a sense of humor at home. This is a big one for families. I mean, nobody can piss you off more than your family members, right? So are you watching funny things together? Are you telling jokes at the dinner table? Are you laughing at yourself? Being able to laugh at yourself is one of the best skills that you can teach with kids. Can you show your kids that you can laugh at yourself? Kids love goofy jokes. I used to tell all of my students in class to bring a joke every week, and it was so much fun. Kids who grow up in homes where humor is present have a much better chance at adult emotional regulation. I get to do something really super funny that we used to do at home. We used to get in some heated fights when my kids were teenagers. And we would just get so annoyed with each other. And one day I started having everyone put this on. I bought these crazy glasses. So like if, especially if I was gonna be criticizing one of my kids or like giving them feedback, or if my children were annoying me, I would make them put these on. Yeah, seriously. And even if we were talking about something serious, we put these on and it would just make it so much less contentious. I bring these into classrooms as well. And people just look at each other, they can't stop laughing. What are these? These are jumbo glasses. I just got them on like Amazon or something. I love those. Okay, to wrap it up, start laughing at yourself. Self-deprecating humor like Jim Gaffigan, I just— it's so transformative. It's, you know, not like really beating yourself up, but kindness underneath it all. Just a healthy kind of self-criticism, but you know, funny. It's the safest way to crack jokes anyway, because then you have less of a chance of hurting someone else's feelings. Feelings, 'cause humor is individual. And so always be mindful not to offend anybody. And most often it's the best to just make fun of yourself. Just having the intention of kindness and compassion and being able to be funny and laughing with people with the intention of connecting, if that's there, that's the best you can do. I wanna add here that because humor is such a bonding experience and humans can be tribal, It is really important to remember not to use a sense of humor to exclude people, because that can happen a lot, right? Like, you bond over making fun of someone else. So refrain from that. That's not gonna be good for you, because then your brain is gonna always think other people are laughing because they're laughing at you too. That's how our brains work. If we're constantly making fun of other people, excluding them, our brains start to assume that that's what other people are doing too, whether or not it's true. So it's not good for you, and it's not good for other people, because we want to be humorous as a way of bonding with the greater good and not trying to make people feel bad. We have to really focus on the healthy way to use humor for ourselves and for others. Finally, consume more comedy. There's so many nasty shows on TV. Like, I mean, I get so frightened of the previews sometimes because they're so violent or hypersexual. So I just love looking for romantic comedies or just comedies in general. Yeah. Be intentional. I'd love for you to put in the comments your favorite comedy show or your favorite comedy episode, anything that makes you laugh. So here's a little something for the nerdy part of me. I love to understand things in a way that's nerdy. There's different types of humor. Psychologists talk about 4 main humor styles. One is affiliative humor. That's a way to connect to others, bring people together. That's good stuff. Again, stay within your values, but finding funny in your own life circumstances is the best thing. So there are two styles of humor that have negative health outcomes. One is aggressive humor, when you use jokes to criticize or demean others, even disguised as, oh, I'm just kidding. And self-defeating humor, when you're putting yourself down to get laughs. Those are two styles that are actually associated with higher anxiety and depression, not lower. So be careful with those. So when you're cultivating your humor, because it's a skill also, you can focus on this and make this a part of your skillset. You wanna aim for affiliative, like bonding and self-enhancing, bringing people together to find joy. That's the formula. So here's the takeaway from today. Laughter is not frivolous or a luxury. It is something that's evidence-backed, freely available. And it's something we have at our fingertips every single day. Think about putting this into part of your day, laughing at something, finding something funny and humorous, bonding over something funny. Just like brushing your teeth is part of your everyday. Humor and laughter reduces stress hormones. It boosts immunity, deepens connections, and builds resilience. And why wouldn't we want that with our family and our loved ones, right? That you can also make new friends this way. The beautiful thing is you can start right now. Again, call your funniest friend, set up a lunch, go find a comedy clip to watch, be silly with your kids at dinner tonight or your parents. And if you want to go deeper on all this resilience, mind-body medicine habits for your family and yourself so that you can relax to soar, follow me @mindbodyspaceofficial on Instagram and check out our resilience courses and programs, our plush dolls coming up at Brain Bond Official. Share this episode with somebody who could use it. A good laugh, which honestly everyone could. So I'm Dr. Juna Bobby MD. Thank you so much for listening, and go laugh at something new today. Send me your best jokes in the comments below. Doctor's orders.