Why Do We Laugh?

Contents

What is laughter?

Laughter seems like an unconscious, instantaneous reaction to something which makes us happy rather than sad. But astonishingly, laughter has very little to do about the sense of humor. It is more about bonding than humor.

It is a way of communication shared between people as a form of understanding, to show we like and accept others, to diffuse the awkward situation and sometimes to be mean and sarcastic. It can easily cross the borders of language, geography and lifestyle. Laughter apparently helps us to love.

How we laugh?

Laughter is a natural phenomenon that can’t be taught. It’s pretty much the same everywhere. It is phenomenally similar to breathing. We have to gain muscle control over how we let out breath helping us make detailed and weird noises. It is an exercise for heart and mind used as a stress booster. It is a kind of percussive air squeezing as in human bagpipes. If we compare playing human bagpipes with constant pressure to talking, then laughing is like one of those silly horns.

Laughing most of the time involves squishing up your face and showing the teeth to other people while grunting and hyperventilating. All this action seems to make laughter a very weird thing to do and so, it makes us all very weird. Along with humans, other animals such as primates, dogs and even rats also laugh. It is generally associated with tickling and playing in animals.

Facts about laughter

Humans laugh for a number of reasons, but most of the time it has nothing to do with funny business. When a joke is involved, the person telling it is far more likely to be the one laughing. We laugh almost 30 times more with other people than if we’re alone. Laughter is contagious just like yawning and can be caught pretty easily from people we know. Due to this behavior of laughter, on 30 January 1962, a laughing fit spread in Tanzania starting from a boarding school and died out as suddenly as it began.

Our mind can easily detect the real and fake laughter but young people are less able to differentiate between them but are most susceptible to contagious laughter.

From all the above facts, we can easily say that laughter is not only the way to feel better, but it is to feel better together.

Read More

Related Articles

Responses

For Worksheets & PrintablesJoin Now
+