Why You Need to Laugh Today

Sometimes it’s hard to laugh. We often consider having things to laugh about as bringing us happiness, but science has shown that it’s the laughter that brings us happiness.

According to the Mayo Clinic, there are many benefits to a bit of laughter in your life.

Short Term Benefits

A bit of laughter has immediate positive results. These changes that occur are both physical ones and psychological ones.

● Provides more oxygen to your body. When we laugh it causes our body to pull in more oxygen, which is then distributed throughout the body. This extra burst of oxygen helps stimulate our organs such as our heart, lungs, and muscles.

● Stress relief! With all the constant stress many of us are under on a daily basis, it can be hard to remember to laugh. However, laughing has shown to pull an immediate physical reaction from our stress response system. The laughter increases our heart rate and then relaxes our system, which allows us to find a calm state after the laughter.

● It can soothe tension. This has to do with the way laughter helps blood and oxygen circulation. It allows your muscles to relax, which will help with some symptoms of stress.

Long Term Benefits

It’s easy to feel the quick benefits of laughing, but there are plenty of longer lasting benefits that you might not realize are connected.

● Improve your immune system. This is one of our favorite benefits at Clean Buddies. Living a healthy lifestyle is about having a healthy immune system. To simplify it; laughter helps push away negative thoughts. Negative thoughts bring out a stress response in our bodies. Laughter will also release neuropeptides, which help with stress and even illness.

● Can be a natural pain reliever. This one might seem counterintuitive because laughing when you’re in pain can hurt, but the endorphins released through laughter can ease a bit of that pain as well as make it easier to face.

● Help face difficult situations. Laughing can assist with personal satisfaction, which makes it easier to navigate through hard situations.

● Improves your mood. Laughter makes us feel better and lifts our spirits. Laughter is also contagious, so it makes people like to be around you. This leads to more happiness.

How You Can Laugh More

So what can we do to laugh more? When we are feeling low or in a bad mood, laughter can be hard to manifest.

● Surround yourself with happiness and humor. Little things that bring us happiness or a little bit of laughter are important. Daily calendars with jokes can be a great way to start your day. On your social media, follow accounts dedicated to humor and laughter. Don’t get sucked into “doomscrolling” through bad news.

● Find humor that doesn’t come at the expense of others. Laughing at others ends up not providing the same benefits and makes you less empathetic, which will take away from many of the great benefits.

● Laugh with others. Laughter is contagious. It brings us together and bonds us, so finding opportunities to laugh with friends and family will bring even more benefits.

● Lighten up! This is easier said than done, yes, of course, but it’s important to remember that we don’t need to take everything so seriously. It’s okay to laugh and find humor.