THE BLISS IN LAUGHTER

By Gavin Aleogho

“A cheerful disposition is good for your health; gloom and doom leave you bone-tired.” Proverb 17:22 MSG

Laughter is part of God’s nature as well as ours, His image-bearer. It doesn’t mean that you are carnal or stupid when you laugh; it’s just human nature.

God deliberately included laughter in our DNA. I’ve heard some people said the opposite, but I disagree. How can you say you are joyful if you can’t express it? Or how can you say you cherish a relationship if you don’t add any sense of humour to it? See, laughter is God’s idea and His gift to us regardless of the challenges in this world. I guess many have a misconception about God’s nature. They find it uneasy to accept God as a loving and humorous Father. Did I just say humorous? Yes! Check it up in the Scripture.

“The Lord shall laugh at him…” Psalms 37:13a.

“He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh…” Psalms 2:4a.

“But thou, O LORD, shalt laugh at them…” Psalms 59:8a

Some of the promises of God are laughter related like; gladness, joy and rejoicing.

“Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh.” Luke 6:21b.

“To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness…” Isaiah 61:3.

“Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing: thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness;” Psalms 30:11.

Sometimes in life, one problem follows another, and before you know it, our day is ruined. But if you must soar over your problem and also have less psychological stress despite life challenges, then you must learn to laugh at your circumstances. If you allow your joy to be shattered by the challenges of life, then you’ll lose strength. But when you laugh at situations, you regain strength to push ahead.

‘Laugh and the world laughs with you’, goes a saying. Laughter is typically seen as an expression of happiness, joy, surprise and even stress. It can also be an expression of scorn, derision, sarcasm or ridicule. It is part of the universal human vocabulary that cut across culture, age and nationality. Just like crying, laughter is one of the preverbal ways of communication for infants. Laughter is a very conspicuous human behaviour but frequently overlooked.

Though, laughter occurs most of the time unconsciously, it can also be done consciously with the same effect. There are many explanations to why we laugh; nevertheless, one of such is that it is triggered by many sensations and thoughts that tend to activate many parts of the body; the face, the vocal organs, while the muscles of the arms, legs and trunk are sometimes involved.

It has been proven that laughter facilitates social bonding. Laughter produces endorphin in our brain that make us feel immediately better and relieved afterwards. Laughter is a great way to create and share feelings of pleasure and joy with others.

Just as it is unveiled in the Scripture, research has also shown that there are numerous benefits of laughter, of which many people are unaware of. Like it is said, ‘laughter is the best medicine’. Laughter is like a magnetic force that has the potential of drawing many benefits to you, ranging from psychological, social, spiritual and many health benefits. Even though many are aware of these, they do not seem to enjoy the benefits of laughter because of the challenges of life which tends to keep them in the opposite side of life.

10 HEALTH BENEFITS OF LAUGHTER

1. Blood Pressure - Laughter lowers blood pressure which in turn reduces the risk of strokes and heart attacks.
2. Hormones - Laughter reduces stress hormone levels in the body which indirectly cut the anxiety and stress impacting your body. This in turn relaxes the muscles.
3. Cardiac Health - Laughter improves cardiac health especially for those who are incapable of doing some physical activities due to injury or illness. It gets the heart pumping and burns a similar amount of calories.
4. Immune - Your T cells are activated when your laugh. T cells are specialized immune system cells just waiting in your body for activation, and when they are activated they help to fight off sicknesses.
5. Pain reduction - Endorphins are release during laughter. Endorphins are the body’s natural pain killer. It helps to ease chronic pain and makes you feel good all over.
6. Well-being - Laughter increases your overall sense of well-being. Doctors have found that people who have a positive outlook on life tends to fight diseases better than people who tends to be negative.
7. Mental functioning – Laughter is known to enhance mental functioning.
8. Respiration - Laughter increases the level of oxygen consumption of the body; thereby accelerates breathing which in turn improves respiration.
9. Sleep - Laughter indirectly helps in getting better sleep.
10. Burns calories – Laughing for 10 minutes a day can burn the same number of calories as a half-hour exercise.

 10 PSYCHOLOGICAL BENEFITS OF LAUGHTER

1. Decreases anxiety.
2. Lessens tension.
3. Eases stress.
4. Reduces depression.
5. Reduces loneliness.
6. Builds self-esteem.
7. Restores hope and energy.
8. Provides a sense of empowerment and control.
9. Increases learning and retention.
10. Improves alertness, creativity and memory.

10 SOCIAL BENEFITS OF LAUGHTER

1. Connects you to people and foster relationship.
2. Makes people to be comfortable with you.
3. Dissolves anger.
4. Improves interpersonal interaction.
5. Increases friendliness and helpfulness.
6. Lowers stress level.
7. Increases the sense of belonging.
8. Laughter makes you attractive to your friend, loved ones and the opposite sex.
9. It can make people build trust in you.
10. It can be infectious.

12 KEYS TO EMBRACING A LIFE OF LAUGHTER

Here are some things you can do to embrace a lifestyle of laughter:

1. Smile always.
2. Learn to count your blessing.
3. Spend time with playful and funny people.
4. Spend time with children.
5. Bring humour to your conversation.
6. Have a playful attitude especially with children and pet.
7. Watch funny movies, comedy and TV shows.
8. Cultivate an attitude of reading comic and jokes.
9. Learn to crack jokes especially about stressful situations rather than complaining about them.
10. Always try to see the funny side of things. Look at situations from the lighter side of life.
11. Don’t take everything in life to be too serious. 
12. Don’t be too hard on yourself when you make mistake. Learn to look at your own face in the mirror and laugh at yourself.