Have you ever thought about the things that happen to your brain and body when you laugh ? Laughter is considered as the best medicine. It might sound weird at first but good and happy things keep you healthy. Most people argue on how can laughter and the feeling of happiness keep you healthy so in this article we are going to talk about the kind of affect that laughter has on your brain and body. The major things that tick in your mind and body when you laugh are given below to help you understand why laughter is healthy for both soul and body.

Apparently so much goes on in your body and brain when you laugh that there is a whole study on laughter in science which is known as ‘Gelotology’. For now we aren’t going to study the whole field of science, just focus on some clicks and tick that take place in your brain and body when you laugh.

Effects of laughter on the brain and body

Before we start we need to understand that laughter is caused when an electric wave triggered by a funny comment or image runs through the largest part of our brain, the cerebral cortex, and takes a negative charge. This initiates the whole laughing process. The major things that take place in our brain at that time are;

• The left side of the brain analyzes the words and structure of the joke
• In case of nonverbal jokes you mind takes the facts of the situation in consideration
• Then the frontal lobe of the brain lit up and gets into details
• The emotionally charged part of your brain which is the right hemisphere of the cortex begins to prepare you to get the joke
• The neuron in your brain transfer the funny stimulus to the occipital lobe of the brain which processes the joke
• Once processed, it sends an output signal to various motor sensors in various parts of the body that respond physically to the joke
• Our heart rate increase, the muscles on our face contact, incorrigible sounds are produced and our eyes start to close.
• The tickle wave is transferred from the facial muscles to the rest of the body muscles which begin to contact as well including the heart which increases blood flow
• Various hormones and chemicals such as endorphin is released into the blood stream that reduces pain.
• After the contraction, the laughter relaxes the muscles in your brain and body that were exposed to stress
• The sympathetic nervous system calms you down and prepares you to handle threat in a better way
• Our immune system is strengthened due to laughter. Laughter triggers the production of T cells in the blood stream that help us fight diseases such as harmful bacteria and viruses that enter your body.

From the above information it is clear that laughter helps both our body and mind so we can say this for sure now that laughter is good for the soul and body so try to spread love and laughter around you to stay healthy and keep others healthy as well.

©Doctor ASKY – All Rights Reserved