Nature doesn't create anything just like that. Every feature of an organism that appears in the process of evolution is aimed at survival. Laughter, which, according to scientists, the most distant human ancestors, who lived more than 10 thousand years ago, were capable of, is just such a feature.
Physiology of laughter and its effect on the body
It has long been known that funny people get sick less often and suffer illnesses more easily than gloomy people. The point here is not only about the emotional mood for recovery, although this is extremely important. Laughter really helps strengthen the body and makes it more resistant to stress.
The muscles of a laughing person make very peculiar movements: a long inhalation is followed by several strong and short spasmodic exhalations. As a result, the diaphragm sharply tenses and relaxes, and the lungs expand and contract. In addition, about 80 muscle groups located in the face, neck, chest, abdomen and back are involved, and more than 1000 calories per hour are spent on their work. It has been clinically proven that a person who often laughs sincerely:
- Digestion improves;
- The lungs are ventilated;
- The speed of blood flow is optimized;
- Blood pressure stabilizes;
- The walls of blood vessels are strengthened;
- The level of glucose and insulin in the blood is normalized;
- The content of stress hormones decreases;
- The concentration of endorphins, which have an analgesic effect, increases;
- Efficiency increases, memory is activated;
- Facial skin becomes more elastic due to increased work of facial muscles;
- Immunity increases;
- Sleep improves.
It has been noticed that children growing up among cheerful and open adults develop better and quickly realize their creative potential.
The beneficial effects of laughter on social and professional fulfillment should not be denied. An open smile is usually associated with friendliness and sociability. Merry people easily join the team, find a common language with new colleagues, actively communicate with them and advance faster in their careers. The ability to notice the funny aspects of life and react to them correctly (that is, cheerfully and easily) helps to communicate and increases self-esteem. Of course, we are talking specifically about good laughter, gentle humor, not associated with malice or evil mockery of other people's problems.
The use of laughter for medicinal purposes
All of the above does not mean that serious people who are not prone to frequent fun should not count on the protective mechanism given to us by nature. You can learn to use it for medicinal purposes. For example, there is a technique by the Indian doctor Madan Kataria, the essence of which is the alternation of breathing exercises taken from yoga and periods of relaxation with laughter. At the same time, people perform special group exercises that help them smile and laugh not at specific things or events, but without any reason, simply infecting each other with fun. Such activities help adult patients return to reflexive laughter, which is characteristic of young children. The therapeutic effect of the healing method developed by Kataria has been clinically confirmed; today there are more than 10 thousand “laughter yoga” clubs in the world.
In the USA and many European countries, for more than 30 years there has been a service called “Clown Ambulance”, whose employees, in addition to medical education, also have special skills that allow them to lift the spirits of patients suffering from serious illnesses. Large clinics (especially children's clinics) often open staff positions for “clowns”, which are occupied by professional actors. The effectiveness of laughter in the treatment of cancer has also been proven. The German doctor Sigmund Foyerabend based his “humorous” method on this fact, which he described in the book “Laughter Cures Cancer.”
However, for some people too active fun is contraindicated. These are patients who have recently undergone surgery, suffering from respiratory infections, hernias, tuberculosis, and eye diseases.
Did you know that laughing is good? No wonder there is a saying that laughter prolongs life.
But if you look around you, we don’t often see people laughing or even just smiling. More often than not, we are surrounded everywhere by people who are gloomy and preoccupied with the problems of life. And to the question: “Why are you so serious?”, people generally answer: “Why be happy?”
In fact, if people expressed positive emotions instead of negative emotions, then there would be much more benefit for everyone around us and, first of all, for ourselves. After all, laughter can save a person from many problems if it really comes from the heart. And even depression cannot resist an outburst of sincere, cheerful laughter.
Let's find out in more detail why laughter is beneficial.
Why laughing is good for you
An interesting fact is that a healthy and prosperous child at the age of 6 months smiles and laughs about 300 times a day! And children, as a rule, always look much happier than adults; they are not bothered by problems, stress and depression as much as adults.
Laughter has many beneficial properties. Laughter makes us feel much better, even when we're not having much fun.
Laughter helps reduce stress and tension hormones. It strengthens the immune system and our body produces more painkillers.
Scientists have proven that a laughing person's brain and nervous system receive impulses that positively affect their work and the entire body as a whole.
People who laugh often get sick much less often. But they don’t even know about depression.
When we laugh, our abdominal muscles tighten, the smooth muscles of the intestines tighten, thereby helping it remove toxins and waste. Therefore, laughter is a kind of gymnastics for the intestines.
When we laugh, our body produces joy hormones - endorphins, which relieve us of irritation, melancholy and sadness.
Colds and infections go away from cheerful laughter, as it helps to produce antibodies that protect us from bacteria and viruses. In addition, laughter increases the number of leukocytes, which fight not only inflammation, but also cancer.
Laughter has a very beneficial effect on our heart, reducing the likelihood of attacks, as it helps normalize blood pressure.
American doctors conducted an experiment examining two groups of people. The first group consisted of almost healthy people, and the second of heart patients. During the examination, doctors found that half of the people suffering from heart disease laughed much less often than healthy people of the same age.
A famous American scientist, Norman Cousins, used laughter to reduce his pain due to a complex spinal disease. Watching comedies and funny entertainment TV shows, he felt that the effect from them was better than from painkillers, he was able to calmly fall asleep without drugs.
After that, he included laughter therapy in the treatment of patients with similar diseases, and created a group researching the healing properties of humor.
Even if you don't have time to rest and relax, try laughing with friends or colleagues, or even alone, for a few minutes by watching a funny clip from your favorite comedy or listening to a funny song. Laughter helps relax about 80 muscle groups; if you laugh for just 5 minutes, it will equal 40 minutes of good rest.
All the above arguments show that laughter does not pass without leaving a mark on a person and his health. Laughing is good for you, there is no doubt about it!
So, dear ones, laugh heartily, even if you are not laughing. Find reasons for joy, there are many of them around, despite our everyday difficulties. As soon as you start laughing, you will see that your life will begin to change for the better! 🙂
The benefits of laughter. From a smile, as you know, a gloomy day becomes brighter, and life, in general, takes on fresh colors. The greatest benefit of laughter is its healing effect on our body.
How Watching comedies strengthens the immune system, and a timely sent “smile” causes a promotion up the career ladder? Let's talk about this.
You may remember the story of one hopelessly ill American. When the doctors gave up, he locked himself in his house alone with a hundred comedy films. I wanted one last laugh.
And, amazing fact, laughter therapy was able to completely cure it. And it was not so much a matter of an optimistic, positive attitude, but a whole group of factors.
When we laugh, we perform a kind of breathing exercise. We breathe intensely, deeply, and often use our belly.
Due to this, we are without unnecessary loads improve blood supply to all organs, reduce cholesterol, arrange ventilation, normalize blood pressure, boost your immunity and get rid of headaches.
And we add a plus sign to our mood. 
When laughing, a crazy number of muscles work. Think for yourself - what’s easier: rowing a kayak for 90 minutes, doing abs for an hour, or just laughing heartily for 15 minutes? The cardio effect is the same!
They say that 17 minutes of continuous laughter gives us an extra day of life. Besides laughter is noticeably invigorating.
Instead of drinking liters of coffee, swallowing energy drinks, dousing yourself with cold water and taking an afternoon nap, just read a couple of jokes.
Laughter stimulates certain parts of the brain. The same ones that, with proper stimulation, give the command to cure many diseases.
Stress hormones, familiar to everyone firsthand (cortisone and adrenaline), cease to be produced.
Where can they be when the body is filled to the brim with endorphin, serotonin and dopamine! These “happy” hormone users fight chronic “depression” and relieve fatigue.
It is understandable that an adult feels stupid when he cackles alone in front of the TV.
In America, this problem is dealt with simply by creating centers of collective laughter. You can come there and laugh heartily in a laughing company.
But if there is no such know-how near your home, get together more often with friends and comrades, remember funny incidents And read jokes from social networks.
By the way, this is one of the few advantages of social networks - the opportunity to make even those who are tightly buried in their own iPhone laugh. Subscribe to fun pages and scroll through the news to lift your spirits.
If you are tired at work, and the rest of the day is like before China, give yourself a laughter break.
No need to sit for half an hour staring at the monitor. It's better to chat with colleagues about a fun topic. And after five minutes of roaring laughter, the entire office will feel rested, “like coming from a resort.” 
Sometimes it’s more effective to laugh at the right time, than taking your problems home. After all, a few minutes of cackling also provide psychological relief and discharge the nervous system.
The more you smile, the fewer quarrels and conflicts there will be in your home.
Don't forget to smile, throw away the fear of facial wrinkles.
A sincere (and even not so sincere) smile can charge you with energy, improve the mood of those around you, start the process of cellular regeneration in the body, and even advance you in your career.
Even boring bosses like positive people, not whiners and grumblers!
“If you want to examine a person and know his soul, then delve not into how he is silent, or how he speaks, or how he cries, or how he is excited by the noblest ideas, but look at him better when he laughs. A man laughs well - means he is a good person." ( F. M. Dostoevsky)
Laughter is great, especially when they say that a minute of laughter prolongs your life. Is this so? Does laughter affect our body and health? Research from scientists at the University of California will help us understand this issue. They claim that in the 50s, people laughed on average for up to twenty minutes a day.
Today that number has dropped to six. The worst thing is not that the sources of good mood have disappeared, but precisely that the lack of laughter still affects our health. After all, laughter is nothing more than an innate reaction of the body to. Therefore, laughter solves all health problems that arise due to stress. Now, let's back up the above with facts. During laughter, the amount of endorphins in the blood increases - the so-called hormones of happiness, which not only improve mood, but also have a pain-relieving effect. The concentration of stress hormones decreases and the immune system is strengthened. Laughter normalizesarterial pressure, insulin and blood glucose levels. Besides, laughter is a sport. When laughingUp to 80 muscle groups are involved: face, neck, abdomen, back and even legs. If we compare the load on the heart, then twenty minutes of laughter corresponds to tr I eat minutes of active rowing. One minute of laughter is equal to 10 minutes of fitness. Laughing for 30 minutes consumes about 500 kcal. Laugh more often - this is a great help for your body in the fight against excess weight. Activation of facial muscles during laughter leads to improved local blood circulation, increased transport of oxygen and nutrients. The state of ourskin: its elastic, fresh, healthy appearance. Laughterhelps strengthen the vascular endothelium and myocardium of the heart. It has been proven that people with a positive attitude and a sense of humor able to laugh sincerely, are less at risk of developing cardiovascular diseases. Laughter saves you from depression, apathy and even laziness. Laughter therapy has been successfully used in the treatment of... personal diseases.
Laughter affects 
general well-being, physical and intellectual performance, stimulates creativity. Researchers, observing 30 employees who laughed fifteen minutes a day for fifteen days, came to the following conclusion: “Their performance indicators and their competence more than doubled.”
It should be noted, however, that laughter comes in different forms and not everyone is healthy. Evil laughter does not bring anything good, as a manifestation of mockery or gloating, ingratiating laughter, etc. Only sincere laughter, “laughter from the heart,” as a manifestation of positive emotions, can have a positive effect not only on your health and mental well-being, but will also improveb the mood and attitude of the people around you. The health benefits of laughter are a scientifically proven fact. So - with Stay healthy!
It has long been known to everyone that laughter prolongs life, relieves stress, helps improve appetite, performance and normalizes sleep. Positive emotions are always useful, because a person who is always in a good mood gets sick much less often and does not have serious illnesses.
There have been conversations about the benefits of laughter for many years. Over time, however, more and more new examples of the positive effects of laughter on human health are becoming increasingly clear. There is now even a real movement in medicine - “gelotology”. This movement is all about healing through laughter.
This effect is due to the fact that thanks to laughter, chemical and biological reactions start in the body. These processes ensure the production of endorphins, serotonins and diphamines. During active laughter, in addition, up to eighty different muscles act. Diaphragm, abs and facial muscles along with them. At the same time, breathing is done more often, which leads to improved blood supply to various internal organs and tissues. The back and neck muscles, on the contrary, rest, which has a good effect on the spinal cord and brain. Research conducted by experts in this field has proven that laughter heals physical pain and neuroses. This is due to the fact that during laughter the volume of stress hormones decreases.
Malaysian scientists conducted a study on how laughter affects a person. Thirty students from National University of Malaysia took part in a nine-day study into the positive effects of laughter on the human body. These lectures included teaching special breathing practices that imitate human laughter. Thus, for several days the volunteers laughed for several hours a day. It turned out that the students who took part in the experiment passed the exams without any problems, and they were not even nervous immediately before passing. Their sleep also normalized and their appetite improved.
For those who have not been helped by any of the diets, scientists recommend laughing more at your problems. This, in their opinion, can be an effective remedy against obesity.
One of these experiments was carried out in a chamber to measure metabolism, where they placed participants in the experiment - friends and lovers, asking them to laugh more. The main purpose of the study was not told to them, otherwise the laughter could have been forced, which would not have caused the desired reaction, because a completely different part of the brain is responsible for such laughter.
First, the subjects were shown calm and peaceful pictures of nature, and then they began to insert excerpts from comedies and humorous programs. And just after this, the participants’ metabolism accelerated significantly. After the duration of laughter was correlated with metabolic parameters, it was concluded that 15 minutes of laughter can burn about 50 calories. That is, with daily laughter caused by heard jokes, funny aphorisms, funny stories or stories from life, you can lose 2-3 kilograms in a year.
