The Therapy of Laughter

During a recent visit with my sister, I found myself doubled over in laughter. I mean, if you spent a minute or two with her you’d know what I mean. My sister can be pretty funny. I realized, in that moment, that I hadn’t laughed like that for a while. My mom used to say after an unleashed moment of gut cleansing laugher, “Oh, my,” as she worked to regain her poise. “I needed that.”

Laughing is not only fun, it’s good for the soul. Think about it, a good laugh wakes the quiescent body. Laughing engages the belly with mind. Have you ever laughed so hard your abdominal muscles hurt? A good workout for sure. After one of those sustained laughs, we just need to take the deepest breath ever, which expands the lungs which is just plain good for overall circulation. And I don’t know about you, but after a really good laugh, I feel my muscles relax and my whole being released of stress I didn’t even know I was carrying.

I remember so well the day my brother, Pat died. For my family whose history of cathartic therapy was laughter, we grieved the deep and tragic loss of him by sitting around my mom’s  dining room table and laughing while sharing the best and sweet and funny stories of our wonderful Pat. We just laughed. One could have misconstrued the scene by wondering how in the world we could find something so funny. For us, the exercise of laughing together offered a bridge to the next day when sadness had a comprehensive grip on our grieving hearts.

I’d love for someone to explain to me how the brain recognizes something funny; and then without thinking, the instantaneous reaction morphs into a guffaw-like, forceful energetic purge that makes a body shake with an uncontrollable release of delight. Laughter is just spontaneous and infectious. I’m sure there’s some scientific explanation of how one can be immersed in the mundane and then, once a strike of humor hits, can succumb to hilarity. I mean, who hasn’t attended a church service and then all of a sudden the giggles take hold and you become a disruptive spectacle of irreverence. Or, what about when you lock eyes with someone who sees through the same lens at the same moment something that completely tickles your funny bone and you must mask the inappropriate laughter by faking a coughing episode. This is precisely why I can’t even look at my sister when the hilarious unfolds in random places.  

The truth is, we don’t laugh nearly as much as we should. When was the last time you found yourself doubled over in laughter? I wonder, do we take life too seriously? Do we take ourselves to seriously? Do we move about our days in the narrow highway of routine? Maybe we don’t look around enough. Regardless, I believe any good clinician or therapist would agree that laughter has a multitude of therapeutic benefits.

I appreciate the spectrum of laughter; from sweet little giggles of a one year old to the eye-wrinkling delight of an older person whose shrinking world consists of scheduled tv and meal trays. I used to love to make my dad laugh. His 90-year-old merriment sprouting from way too manicured time was infectious. Better yet, I loved when he made me laugh.

Bottom line, laughter is good for the soul, and it’s a good exercise to be aware of what brings us into the uncontrollable world of laughing. My goal is to seek laugher today. I wonder if my sister is free for lunch?