“A day without laughter is the most wasted of
all days,” wrote poet E.E Cummings. “Laughter is an
instant vacation,” comedian Milton Berle is quoted as saying.
And Mel Brooks, the well-known comedy producer, puts it this way: “Humour
is just another defense against the universe.”
Comments and reflections about laughter have existed in our culture
since the time of the early Greeks. Likewise,
so has the attempt to control laughter. Plato warns against the
use of it in his Republic, asserting that it “weakens character
and confuses the mind.” In the royal courts of medieval Europe,
court jesters were the only ones allowed to poke fun (and ultimately
criticize) the monarchy without being beheaded; and comedians are
a targeted group in totalitarian regimes, often forced to use humour
only in service to the state (Hitler , for example, held “Joke
Courts” as a means to control the use of humour directed
against the Third Reich).
William Sargent, a psychologist who
has done intensive studies on the process of brainwashing, discovered
in his research that if the subjects laugh at any point in the
process, the “whole process is wrecked and must be begun
all over again.” As Sargent’s brainwashing experiments
reveal, a strong connection exists between laughter and freedom
of thought; for
laughter can disempower any given situation that causes stress
in our lives. If we can laugh at it, it can’t kill us (or
control us). Moreover, it is also a much sought-after and satisfying
state of human expression. Yet as we get older, many of us lose
the capacity to laugh very much. Psychologists tell us that children
laugh 400 times each day whereas adults only laugh 7 to 15 times.
That is a difference of 385 laughs! While we may never get back
to that state of being as carefree as a child, injecting some much
needed laughter into our lives is good not only for our bodies,
but for our brains as well - as science is fast proving. With science
deciding to get involved in the debate, scores of dedicated researchers
have set out out to find out why we laugh in the first place, and
how we benefit from it. Even a new field of scientific study has
been created around this subject. Gelotology: the study of human
laughter.
Journalist and former Saturday Review editor Norman Cousins is
credited with first popularizing the notion that laughter has healing
benefits. In his book, Anatomy of an Illness, Cousins recounts
the years he survived ankylosing spondylitis, a painful degenerative
disease of the connective tissue. With the support of his doctor,
Cousins put himself on a “prescriptive” program of
watching funny movies and getting comedic books read out loud to
him. As Cousins describes it: “It worked. I made the joyous
discovery that ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic
effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep.”
Ten years after Cousins published his account, two researchers
from Loma Linda University began to look more seriously into the
scientific benefits of laughter. Lee Berk, M.D., associate director
of the Center for Neuroimmunology, and Stanley Tan, M.D., assistant
professor of medicine, found that laughter changes the levels of
epinephrine and cortisol – the so-called “stress hormones” – as
well as other natural “killer cells” in our body that
are responsible for the early recognition and removal of viruses
and tumours. As reported by Bill Strubbe, who recounted these studies
in Body Sense Magazine, Berk and Tan conducted experiments that
showed that “laughter increases levels of gamma-interferon
(a disease-fighting protein); T-cells, which are a major part of
the immune response; and B-cells, which make disease-destroying
antibodies.” Continued medical research in this field has
also shown that even if we only pretend to laugh or act happy,
our bodies begin to produce the same chemicals that are released
when we genuinely do feel happiness or are laughing.
We can all
expect to experience stress in our lives, which gives the study
of laughter much more serious implications than one may
first think. Exposure to constant,
or
acute, stress, suppresses the immune functions of the body, leaving
organisms much more vulnerable to disease and infection. While
the more popular (and much more endorsed solution) of our society
is to either drug or numb our stress with “painkillers” and
prescription drugs, gelotology researchers are discovering that
there is a much more cheaper, and natural, option out there. The
thing is: Can anybody take laughter so seriously?
New brain research, collaborating with the medical and scientific
evidence that laughter is good for our immune systems, suggests
that the urge to laugh is a response to our need for social connection.
As Mariana Funes, a British cognitive psychologist with extensive
experience in the study of laughter, writes: “I take my laughter
very seriously. Long before I knew about the health-giving effects
of laughter I used to make it my aim in my daily interactions with
people to share a smile, a chuckle or a laugh with them before
moving on to the busy demands of my day. I judge the success of
my interactions with others by the extent with which I am able
to share laughter with them.”
Funes describes herself as becoming a rather “reluctant
laughter educator.” As a corporate consultant, Funes conducts
workshops on laughter for management and personal development.
In her book, Laughing Matters, she talks about how, in her work
with large corporations, a group of people may be working and achieving
results while at the same time sharing a lot of laughter and play.
There always comes a moment, Funes observes, when someone in the
group will say: “That’s enough. Let’s get back
to work!” It is precisely such prejudices like this one,
Funes argues, that stop the flow of integrated thinking, when our
two modes of thinking, G-Mode and D-Mode, are both being activated
at the same time.
D-Mode (deliberate thinking) is “cognitive consciousness.” Purposeful
and articulate, it is the method we often employ to evaluate ideas.
G-Mode thinking, on the other hand, stands for gap-mode thinking,
and is often “dismissed” as intuition. In G-mode thinking
we employ our originality to “mess around” with the
problem and generate ideas. While culturally, we are more encouraged
to develop our D-Mode thinking skills, both are essential for the
process of learning. Where does laughter fit into this? Laughter
falls within the realm of G-mode thinking: intuitive, unconscious,
it is often a signal that we have made a new connection, and have
suddenly perceived something in a new way.
Part II of this article will be an in-depth interview with Dr.
Mariana Funes on our her latest area of research: Reframing leadership
competencies through laughter and using time sustainably.
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