Laughter

in Laos laughing|upright=.97 Laughter is a typically pleasant physical reaction and emotion consisting usually of rhythmical, usually audible contractions of the diaphragm and other parts of the respiratory system. It is a response to certain external or internal stimuli. Laughter can rise from such stimuli as being tickled, or from humorous stories, imagery, videos or thoughts. Most commonly, it is considered an auditory expression of a number of positive emotional states, such as joy, mirth, happiness or relief. On some occasions, however, it may be caused by contrary emotional states such as embarrassment, surprise, or confusion such as nervous laughter or courtesy laugh. Age, gender, education, language and culture are all indicators as to whether a person will experience laughter in a given situation. Other than humans, some other species of primate (chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans) express laughter-like vocalizations in response to physical contact such as wrestling, play chasing or tickling. Laughter is a part of human behavior regulated by the brain, helping humans clarify their intentions in social interaction and providing an emotional context to conversations. Laughter is used as a signal for being part of a group—it signals acceptance and positive interactions with others.…

in Laos laughing|upright=.97 Laughter is a typically pleasant physical reaction and emotion consisting usually of rhythmical, usually audible contractions of the diaphragm and other parts of the respiratory system. It is a response to certain external or internal stimuli. Laughter can rise from such stimuli as being tickled, or from humorous stories, imagery, videos or thoughts. Most commonly, it is considered an auditory expression of a number of positive emotional states, such as joy, mirth, happiness or relief. On some occasions, however, it may be caused by contrary emotional states such as embarrassment, surprise, or confusion such as nervous laughter or courtesy laugh. Age, gender, education, language and culture are all indicators as to whether a person will experience laughter in a given situation. Other than humans, some other species of primate (chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans) express laughter-like vocalizations in response to physical contact such as wrestling, play chasing or tickling. Laughter is a part of human behavior regulated by the brain, helping humans clarify their intentions in social interaction and providing an emotional context to conversations. Laughter is used as a signal for being part of a group—it signals acceptance and positive interactions with others. Laughter is sometimes seen as contagious and the laughter of one person can itself provoke laughter from others as a positive feedback. The study of humor and laughter, and its psychological and physiological effects on the human body, is called gelotology. ==Negative aspects== Laughter is not always a pleasant experience and is associated with several negative phenomena. Excessive laughter can lead to cataplexy, and unpleasant laughter spells, excessive elation, and fits of laughter can all be considered negative aspects of laughter. Unpleasant laughter spells, or "sham mirth", usually occur in people who have a neurological condition, including patients with pseudobulbar palsy, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease. These patients appear to be laughing out of amusement but report that they are feeling undesirable sensations "at the time of the punch line". Excessive elation is a common symptom associated with bipolar disorder psychoses and mania/hypomania. Those with schizophrenic psychoses seem to experience the opposite—they do not understand humor or get any joy out of it. A fit describes an abnormal time when one cannot control the laughter or one's body, sometimes leading to seizures or a brief period of unconsciousness. Some believe that fits of laughter represent a form of epilepsy. ==Therapy== Laughter has been used as a therapeutic tool for many years because it is a natural form of medicine. Laughter is available to everyone and it provides benefits to a person's physical, emotional, and social well-being. Some of the benefits of using laughter therapy are that it can relieve stress and relax the whole body. It can also boost the immune system and release endorphins to relieve pain. Additionally, laughter can help prevent heart disease by increasing blood flow and improving the function of blood vessels. Some of the emotional benefits include diminishing anxiety or fear, improving overall mood, and adding joy to one's life. Laughter is also known to reduce allergic reactions in a preliminary study related to dust mite allergy sufferers. Laughter therapy also has some social benefits, such as strengthening relationships, improving teamwork and reducing conflicts, and making oneself more attractive to others. Therefore, whether a person is trying to cope with a terminal illness or just trying to manage their stress or anxiety levels, laughter therapy can be a significant enhancement to their life. Ramon Mora-Ripoll in his study on The Therapeutic Value Of Laughter In Medicine, stated that laughter therapy is an inexpensive and simple tool that can be used in patient care. It is a tool that is only beneficial when experienced and shared. Care givers need to recognize the importance of laughter and possess the right attitude to pass it on. He went on to say that since this type of therapy is not widely practiced, health care providers will have to learn how to effectively use it. In another survey, researchers looked at how Occupational Therapists and other care givers viewed and used humor with patients as a means of therapy. Many agreed that while they believed it was beneficial to the patients, the proper training was lacking in order to effectively use It. Even though laughter and humor has been used therapeutically in medical conditions, according to Mora-Ripoll, there was not enough data to clearly establish that laughter could be used as an overall means of healing. It did suggest that additional research was still needed since "well-designed randomized controlled trials have not been conducted to date validating the therapeutic efficacy of laughter." In 2017, an institution in Japan conducted an open-label randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effects of laughter therapy on quality of life in patients with cancer. The study used laughter yoga, comedy, clown and jokes. The result showed that laughter therapy was helpful in improving quality of life and cancer symptoms in some areas for cancer survivors. Improvements were seen in the area of depression, anxiety and stress levels. There were limited harmful side effects. Laughter therapy should be used in conjunction with other cancer treatment. ==Research== There is a wide range of experiences with laughter. A 1999 study by two humor researchers asked 80 people to keep a daily laughter record, and found they laughed an average of 18 times per day. However, their study also found a wide range, with some people laughing as many as 89 times per day, and others laughing as few as 0 times per day. Carlo Bellieni examined laughter in an essay published in New Ideas in Psychology. He wrote we can strip back laughter to a three-step process. First, it needs a situation that seems odd and induces a sense of incongruity (bewilderment or panic). Second, the worry or stress the incongruous situation has provoked must be worked out and overcome (resolution). Third, the actual release of laughter acts as an all-clear siren to alert bystanders (relief) that they are safe. ==Laughter in literature and philosophy== Laughter in literature, although considered understudied by some, is a subject that has received attention in the written word for millennia. The use of humor and laughter in literary works (for example the homeric laughter (ἄσβεστος γέλως, ásbestos gélōs, "unceasing laughter") in Greek epics like the Iliad and Odyssey) has been studied and analyzed by many thinkers and writers, from the Ancient Greek philosophers onward. Henri Bergson's Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic (Le rire, 1901) is a notable 20th-century contribution. ===Ancient writers=== ====Herodotus==== For Herodotus, laughers can be distinguished into three types: Those who are innocent of wrongdoing, but ignorant of their own vulnerability Those who are mad Those who are overconfident According to Donald Lateiner, Herodotus reports about laughter for valid literary and historiological reasons. "Herodotus believes either that both nature (better, the gods' direction of it) and human nature coincide sufficiently, or that the latter is but an aspect or analogue of the former, so that to the recipient the outcome is suggested." When reporting laughter, Herodotus does so in the conviction that it tells the reader something about the future and/or the character of the person laughing. It is also in this sense that it is not coincidental that in about 80% of the times when Herodotus speaks about laughter it is followed by a retribution. "Men whose laughter deserves report are marked, because laughter connotes scornful disdain, disdain feeling of superiority, and this feeling and the actions which stem from it attract the wrath of the gods." ====Psalms==== In the Hebrew Bible, the returning exiles who came from Babylon to Jerusalem celebrated their return with laughter and "shouts of joy. ===Modern philosophers=== laughing ====Hobbes==== Thomas Hobbes wrote, "The passion of laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly." ====Schopenhauer==== Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer devotes the 13th chapter of the first part of his major work, The World as Will and Representation, to laughter. ====Nietzsche==== Friedrich Nietzsche distinguishes two different purposes for the use of laughter. In a positive sense, "man uses the comical as a therapy against the restraining jacket of logic, morality and reason. He needs from time to time a harmless demotion from reason and hardship and in this sense laughter has a positive character for Nietzsche." Laughter can, however, also have a negative connotation when it is used for the expression of social conflict. This is expressed, for instance, in The Gay Science: "Laughter – Laughter means to be schadenfroh, but with clear conscience." "Possibly Nietzsche's works would have had a totally different effect, if the playful, ironical and joking in his writings would have been factored in better." ====Bergson==== In Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, French philosopher Henri Bergson, renowned for his philosophical studies on materiality, memory, life and consciousness, tries to determine the laws of the comic and to understand the fundamental causes of comic situations. His method consists in determining the causes of the comic instead of analyzing its effects. He also deals with laughter in relation to human life, collective imagination and art, to have a better knowledge of society. One of the theories of the essay is that laughter, as a collective activity, has a social and moral role, in forcing people to eliminate their vices. It is a factor of uniformity of behaviours, as it condemns ludicrous and eccentric behaviours. ====Ludovici==== Anthony Ludovici developed the thoughts of Hobbes even further in The Secret of Laughter. His conviction is that there is something sinister in laughter, and that the modern omnipresence of humour and the idolatry of it are signs of societal weakness, as instinctive resort to humour became a sort of escapism from responsibility and action. Ludovici considered laughter to be an evolutionary trait and he offered many examples of different triggers for laughter with their own distinct explanations. ====Bellieni==== Chapman, Antony J.; Foot, Hugh C.; Derks, Peter (editors), Humor and Laughter: Theory, Research, and Applications, Transaction Publishers, 1996. . Books.google.com Cousins, Norman, Anatomy of an Illness As Perceived by the Patient, 1979. Fried, I., Wilson, C.L., MacDonald, K.A., and Behnke EJ. "Electric Current Stimulates Laughter". Nature, 391:650, 1998 (see patient AK) Goel, V. & Dolan, R. J. "The Functional Anatomy of Humor: Segregating Cognitive and Affective Components". Nature Neuroscience 3, 237–238 (2001). Greig, John Young Thomson, The Psychology of Comedy and Laughter, New York, Dodd, Mead and company, 1923. "Humor & Laughter: Health Benefits and Online Sources". Helpguide, 2004. Jenkins, Ronald Scott (1994). "Chapter 2: Sacred Laughter in Bali" . Subversive Laughter: The Liberating Power of Comedy. New York: The Free Press. pp. 13–45. Johnson, S. (April 2003). . Discover 24(4). Kawakami, K., et al., "Origins of smile and laughter: A preliminary study". Early Human Development (2006) 82, 61–66. kyoto-u.ac.jp Klein, A. The Courage to Laugh: Humor, Hope and Healing in the Face of Death and Dying. Los Angeles: Tarcher/Putman, 1998. Knight, Chris (February 2019). "Does Laughter Hold the Key to Human Consciousness?". Aeon Essays. Aeon Magazine. Krichtafovitch, Igor (2006). Humor Theory: The Formulae of Laughter. Denver, Col.: Outskirts Press. . MacDonald, C., "A Chuckle a Day Keeps the Doctor Away: Therapeutic Humor & Laughter" Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services (2004) V42, 3:18–25. psychnurse.org Marteinson, Peter, On the Problem of the Comic: A Philosophical Study on the Origins of Laughter , Legas Press, Ottawa, 2006. utoronto.ca Milius, S., "Don't look now, but is that dog laughing?" Science News (2001) V160 4:55. sciencenews.org Moeller, Hans-Georg, und Günter Wohlfart (Hrsg.): Laughter in Eastern and Western Philosophies. Verlag Karl Alber, Freiburg / München 2010. . Panksepp, J., Burgdorf, J., Laughing' Rats and the Evolutionary Antecedents of Human Joy?" Physiology & Behavior (2003) 79:533–547. psych.umn.edu Provine, R. R., "Laughter". American Scientist, V84, 38:45, 1996. ucla.edu Raskin, Victor (1985). Semantic Mechanisms of Humor. Simonet, P., et al. (2005). "Dog Laughter: Recorded Playback Reduces Stress Related Behavior in Shelter Dogs". 7th International Conference on Environmental Enrichment. petalk.org. Transcriptions of laughter, writtensound.com Recordings of people laughing, 99 audio examples of human laughter Comprehensive summary of research on the benefits of laughter

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