Laughter is the Best Medicine

Story by Nidia Torres | Photos by Kassandra Eller | Design by Ilse Orta Mederos | Illustration by Sara Roach

Can you remember the last time you were completely overcome with gut-busting laughter? Maybe it was a movie you were watching or a joke your friend told you. Whatever it was, that moment of suspended laughter may have brought you a strong feeling of pleasure.

While laughter is something that you all have experienced, you may not know that laughter also has intrinsic physical and emotional benefits.

“Laughter is the biological process that we have in our bodies that helps us … release feelings,” says Laughter Therapist Enda Junkins, who has specialized in laughter therapy for 29 of her 49 years in practice as a therapist. 

According to Junkins, this natural process can be very beneficial in helping people move past difficult times. Although many clients come to Junkins for standard therapy, she also offers them laughter therapy as an alternative method.

“Laughter changes how you relate to the facts and so it helps people get perspective on what issues they are dealing with,” she says. 

The method Junkins uses the most for laughter therapy is one she learned when she was under the tutelage of another laughter therapist named Annette Goodheart. This method allows people to make an emotional confession and add a cathartic trigger at the end, according to Junkins. 

Cathartic triggers, or catharsis, is “the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed [emotions],” according to Oxford Languages.

These cathartic triggers are supposed to allow people to laugh and relieve tension and unpack the enormity of an issue, explains Junkins.

  “Depending on the person … they are able to laugh and so what that does is, it shrinks the issue that we [have] allowed to become so humongous we can’t cope with it,” Junkins explains. She adds, laughter is “one of the best medicines.”

While laughter can help many cope with difficult experiences, others are chasing laughter for a different outcome.

The Other Side of the Laugh

Junior Digital Journalism major Libby Williams’ interest in making people laugh inspired her to seek performing in comedy as a hobby.

Williams has performed for an audience a total of six times. “In my day, it’s gotten to the point where everything out of my mouth, most of the time, is trying to get somebody to laugh, and it doesn’t always land,” Williams says.

Junkins explains that the reason not everyone finds certain things funny is because that is based off of the person's individual humor. 

“Humor comes from your family, your intellect and your culture. It’s one trigger for laughter, but it’s only one and that’s why what strikes me as funny may not strike you as funny,” Junkins says.

When Williams does succeed in winning a crowd over, she explains she feels fulfilled. During these times, laughter serves as a good way to “ease the tension” surrounding these difficult times, according to Williams. 

Junkins says, “It's important for people to know that we need to laugh. We need to laugh more than we do … because it’s bonding and pulls you together with people. It’s a good thing.” 

One way people are bonded is through public forms of comedic relief such as open mic nights or comedy shows. Williams is no stranger to both. 

“I just started doing it freshman year and I was hoping to do more this year, but with everything getting shut down I couldn't anymore, so hopefully more stuff opens up,” Williams says. She has since joined an improv team on campus called “The Hot New Jam” to continue practicing her comedy performances.  

Williams recommends students to connect with friends, even via Zoom, to have a game night, laugh and remain social. “We’re so far gone at this point that I think it’s a good time if you give yourself the chance to actually do something,” she says.

Many individuals may attribute the feeling of pleasure they receive from laughter to their own happiness.

Linked to Happiness

When Information Technology and Administrative Management Professor Natalie Lupton asked the students of her class, “What is happiness?” to reflect on their own levels of happiness, they came up with a variety of individual definitions. 

“Everyone had a different answer from day one,” Lupton recalls. “That’s what I always find interesting is [that] in that short nine, ten weeks of coverage, people reflected and changed their definition.”

While happiness is relative to the individual person, Junkins explains, happiness is really determined and how laughter may factor into achieving that state of mind.

“Happiness is not a feeling, it’s a state of being that’s caused by circumstance,” Junkins says. “I think someone who's able to laugh or able to cry [is] because it gives them perspective. It makes you move through life a little easier, and every time you laugh you're dumping pain.” 

Williams attributes other skills like listening and conversing with people as methods to spread happiness, which are just as important as being able to crack a joke.

“There's a lot of different skill sets to help make people happy; capitalize on the one you've got and go for it,” Williams suggests.

Exclusive Online Content

Is Laughter Really the Best Medicine?

Believe it or not, laughter became a type of medicine for a man named Norman Cousins who, in 1964, was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis. This degenerative disease broke down Cousins’ collagen, which reduced his lifetime to mere months. Cousins was undergoing treatment, but still suffered constantly, according to an article that discusses his case in the American Physiology Society’s journal “Advances in Physiology in Education.” 

The article, titled “Humor, laughter, learning and health! A brief review,” describes how, under the watchful care of his physicians, Cousins took a higher dosage of vitamin C and proceeded to watch humorous movies and shows to encourage laughter. Cousins began to experience pain-free sleep and was able to extend his lifetime 25 years, according to the article. 

In other words, laughter reduced his pain and relieved stress. The article cites Cousins: “Ten minutes of laughter gave me 2 hours of pain free sleep.” Laughter, he said, “produced a natural body anesthesia.” 

According to the research article, Cousins was an expert in the biochemistry of human emotions. This aided him in setting up a self-made treatment. His belief was that positive human emotion was vital for humans to fight any illnesses. 

In Cousins’ case, he used his humor, what he finds amusing or funny, to induce laughter. This process is what helped his theory on positive emotion become a reality.