Pain 10% more bearable after laughing with friends

Laughing with friends for around 15 minutes boosts a person’s pain threshold by an average of 10%, an international study has found.

A research team led by evolutionary anthropologists from Oxford University in the UK has concluded that the endorphins released by a big belly laugh in a social setting can make pain more bearable.

Noting that previous studies had found laughter was more likely when in a group than when alone, the researchers conducted experiments where groups of participants watched comedy clips, including Mr Bean, or live comedy at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. A control group was shown factual videos like golf tournament footage.

After viewing, the participants were given pain tolerance tests such as seeing how long they could withstand cold, a tight blood pressure cuff or do strenuous exercise.

“We tested the hypothesis that social laughter elevates pain thresholds both in the laboratory and under naturalistic conditions. In both cases, the results confirmed that when laughter is elicited, pain thresholds are significantly increased, whereas when subjects watched something that does not naturally elicit laughter, pain thresholds do not change (and are often lower),” the researchers wrote in their paper, which was titled “Social laughter is correlated with an elevated pain threshold” and published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

“These results can best be explained by the action of endorphins released by laughter.”

Read the full article here.

Body’s Response to Repetitive Laughter Is Similar to the Effect of Repetitive Exercise, Study Finds

We’re moving forward. Research now confirms that repetitive laughter is similar to the effect of repetitive exercise. It is now viewed as valid alternative, initially less strenuous, activity to help frail people regain their appetite. … Continue Reading

Role of laughter in jury deliberations during a capital murder case: plays key roles in group communication and group dynamics

Laughter can play key roles in group communication and group dynamics — even when there’s nothing funny going on. That’s according to new research from North Carolina State University that examined the role of laughter in jury deliberations during a capital murder case. The researchers were given access to the full transcript of jury deliberations in the 2004 Ohio trial of Mark Ducic, a white male charged with two murders and 30 additional counts, largely related to drug violations.

Here is a summary of the research:

“Laughter is one way of dealing with ambiguity and tension in situations where a group is attempting to make consequential decisions and informal power dynamics are in play,” Keyton says. “There are very few opportunities to see group decision making, with major consequences, in a public setting,” Keyton explains. “It is usually done in private, such as in corporate board meetings or judicial proceedings. But laughter is something that occurs frequently, and not only because something is funny. Nobody in the jury was laughing at jokes.”

Read more at http://www.sciencedaily.com

Laughter and music could lower blood pressure just as much as cutting salt

Researchers at Osaka University in Japan assigned 79 people between the ages of 40 and 74 to one of three groups. Thirty-two were assigned to a music group where they listened to music and sang with music therapists. Thirty participants participated in laughter yoga, which combines breathing exercises with laughter stimulated through playful eye contact, plus watched a traditional Japanese comedy show called Rakugo. Each session took place for one hour twice a week for three months. The remaining 17 were controls who neither listened to music nor participated in the laughter sessions.

… Continue Reading

Academic Research on Laughter Yoga: What Is Known, More Coming

There are currently many academic research on laughter…and few on Laughter Yoga.
This post is a summary of what is know, and what’s coming.
… Continue Reading

Research validates years of worldwide empirical evidence: Laughter therapy is a useful, cost-effective and easily accessible intervention that has positive effects on depression, insomnia, and sleep quality in the elderly

Book Review: “Laughter: A Scientific Investigation”

Laughter, although ubiquitous and idiosyncratically human, remains a neurologic, social, and evolutionary enigma. There has certainly been no dearth of philosophical speculation concerning its mirthful triggers and metaphysical purposes, but no one has previously actually bothered to accurately describe its essential phenomenology or precise behavioral cues. What auditory rudiments constitute laughter? Aside from comedy clubs, where and when is it heard most, and how and why is it produced? The subject has long been ripe for such juicy scientific inquiry and observational harvest, being a relatively stereotypic and reproducible behavior readily elicited by a diversity of social and environmental stimuli. Funny no one has taken up to the task before now, almost laughable, really…

… Continue Reading

Scientific study provides evidence for the efficacy of Laughter Yoga in mental disorders

The first scientific study (randomized controlled trial) to provide evidence for the efficacy of Laughter Yoga in mental disorders was published this month in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. Findings showed that Laughter Yoga matched the efficacy of exercise therapy and even proved superior in improving life satisfaction.

Research says women benefit most from laughter

Laughter Yoga and (IVF) Pregnancies

Researchers found that women who laughed during their recovery from the embryo transfer were almost twice as likely to become pregnant (this was done using clowns to make the women laugh). Our claim is that Laughter Yoga can help even more as it is the most powerful  form of laughter exercise one can experience, and also the easiest to implement and sustain in the long run.

… Continue Reading