You Crack Me Up!

The surprising benefits of laughter—and how to invite more of it into your life.

When was the last time you laughed so hard that you couldn't catch your breath?

You know the kind of laughter I'm talking about. Your stomach hurts, your eyes are watering, and every time you try to explain what's so funny, you start laughing all over again. Before you know it, everyone around you is laughing too, even if they have absolutely no idea what's going on!

I LOVE those moments. There's something wonderfully freeing about laughter. For a little while, we're not thinking about our responsibilities, our schedules, or everything we have left to accomplish. We're simply enjoying ourselves, perhaps being a little ridiculous, and connecting with a part of our humanness that we sometimes forget to nurture.

And here's something fascinating. While we're busy cracking up, some pretty remarkable things are happening inside our bodies and brains. Laughter involves our nervous system, muscles, breathing, circulation, and brain chemistry, and researchers are still discovering how far its effects may reach.

As it turns out, laughter is no laughing matter!

Well, actually, it is. And that's the point.

The Observation

Have you ever laughed so hard your abs hurt? There's a reason for that! When we laugh, our diaphragm contracts, our abdominal muscles engage, and our breathing patterns change. A hearty laugh can temporarily increase our heart rate, creating a brief burst of physical activity. Researchers have even experimented with incorporating laughter into exercise programs, finding improvements in aerobic endurance and enjoyment among older adults participating in laughter-enhanced activities.

And that's just the beginning. Laughter is associated with the release of endorphins, chemicals involved in our body's natural pain-regulation systems. Studies have found that social laughter can increase pain tolerance, suggesting another intriguing connection between laughter, our nervous system, and physical well-being.

But what really caught my attention was how laughter influences everyday experiences we rarely associate with humor.

Sleep, for example. Laughter can help reduce physical tension and influence stress-related hormones, including cortisol. Researchers have also explored its relationship with melatonin, the hormone that regulates our sleep-wake cycle. Studies of laughter-based interventions have reported improvements in sleep quality, including among older adults. Perhaps ending the evening with a funny story or a favorite comedy deserves a place alongside our other bedtime rituals.

Then there's memory. Our hippocampus, a part of the brain essential for learning and memory, is sensitive to prolonged stress. Because laughter can help moderate our stress response, researchers have been exploring whether it may also support cognitive performance. In one study at Loma Linda University, older adults who watched a humorous video for just twenty minutes demonstrated improvements in learning and memory compared with participants who hadn't watched it.

Twenty minutes of comedy. Now that's an assignment I could get excited about!

And what about focus? Research has examined how humor and laughter influence attention, response speed, and blood flow in areas of the brain involved in executive functioning, including the prefrontal cortex. Some studies have reported improvements in particular measures of concentration following exposure to humor. It's an intriguing possibility that a brief laughter break might help us return to a demanding task feeling more mentally refreshed.

Our immune system also appears to respond to laughter. The nervous, endocrine, and immune systems constantly communicate, and researchers have observed changes in certain immune markers after laughter, including natural killer cells that help identify and respond to infected or abnormal cells. Other studies have explored changes in antibodies involved in immune defense. Although these findings don't mean laughter guarantees protection against illness, they offer another fascinating glimpse into the relationship between our emotional experiences and physical health.

And just when I thought the research couldn't get any more surprising, I came across a study involving fertility.

Researchers arranged for a medical clown to visit women shortly after embryo transfer during IVF treatment. The clown performed a brief routine intended to make the women laugh and ease some of the emotional tension surrounding the procedure. The reported clinical pregnancy rate was approximately 36% among women who received the visit, compared with about 20% in the comparison group.

Imagine that! A medical clown participating in fertility research!

Although one study cannot establish laughter as a fertility treatment, it raises intriguing questions about stress physiology, reproductive processes, and the remarkable ways our bodies respond to emotional experiences.

And we haven't even explored everything researchers are learning about laughter's relationship with cardiovascular function, muscle relaxation, and stress regulation.

The more I read, the more fascinated I became. Something so ordinary, so accessible, and so thoroughly enjoyable can involve an extraordinary number of interconnected processes within our bodies.

Perhaps we've been underestimating laughter all along.

What Happens Between Us

As fascinating as the physiology is, some of laughter's most meaningful benefits may be found in what happens between people.

Think about the people in your life who make you laugh. Perhaps you have a friend with whom you share a wonderfully ridiculous sense of humor, a family member who can make you laugh with a single look, or someone whose laughter is so contagious you can't help joining in. Sometimes the laughter itself becomes funnier than whatever started it!

Shared laughter can create feelings of closeness, ease tension, and help us feel more comfortable with one another. Researchers studying social laughter have found connections between laughing together, pain tolerance, and feelings of social bonding. We don't necessarily need to know someone well to experience that connection. A spontaneous laugh with a stranger can transform an ordinary moment into a shared experience.

Consider what laughter can bring to parenting. A parent who gets down on the floor to play, invents a ridiculous bedtime story, or finds a way to bring humor into a frustrating moment may create an opportunity for connection that a lecture or correction never could. Playful laughter can help children feel welcomed, understood, and connected while reminding adults that parenting doesn't have to be serious every minute of the day.

In professional teams, appropriate humor can help people relax, build rapport, and feel more comfortable participating. A leader who can laugh at their own harmless mistakes may help create an environment where people feel less pressure to appear perfect. Shared moments of laughter can become part of the relationships that make working together more enjoyable and collaborative.

Between friends and romantic partners, laughter can create a language all its own. Inside jokes, playful teasing, funny memories, and those moments when a single glance sends both people into fits of laughter can become part of the fabric of a relationship. They remind us of the experiences we've shared and the pleasure we find in one another's company.

And then there's the relationship we have with ourselves. Being able to laugh affectionately at our own peculiarities, mishaps, and occasional absurdities can help us hold our imperfections a little more lightly. We don't have to ridicule ourselves or dismiss our feelings. Sometimes we can simply recognize that being human is a wonderfully imperfect business.

Of course, there's an important distinction between laughing with someone and laughing at someone. Humor can connect us, but it can also exclude or embarrass when it isn't offered with kindness and sensitivity. The laughter we're celebrating here is the kind that welcomes people in and allows everyone to enjoy the experience.

Perhaps that's one of the most beautiful things about laughter. It can become another way of communicating affection, belonging, and connection without requiring us to find exactly the right words.

The Invitation: Go Ahead. Crack Yourself Up!

With all these fascinating possibilities, I found myself wondering how often we actually create opportunities to laugh. We make time for work, errands, appointments, exercise, and countless responsibilities, but how often do we intentionally make room for something simply because it makes us laugh?

The wonderful thing is that we don't need to make dramatic changes. We can begin by remembering what makes us laugh and creating more opportunities to experience it.

If you spend time with children or pets, allow yourself to get caught up in their playfulness. Make silly faces, invent ridiculous games, or get down on the floor and join the fun. Children and animals can be wonderful reminders that not everything we do needs to have a purpose beyond enjoyment.

Find comedians who make you laugh, watch funny movies or short comedic skits, and keep a collection of silly videos that reliably brighten your day. Sing a ridiculous song, make up absurd lyrics to something familiar, or dance around your kitchen without worrying whether anyone is watching.

And don't underestimate the pleasure of sharing laughter with someone else. Call a friend and revisit a hilarious memory. Play charades or another silly game. Send a funny voice message. Arrange a harmless practical joke that everyone can enjoy, or indulge in a little playful tickling when it's something everyone welcomes.

You might even try laughter yoga, which combines intentional laughter exercises with breathing and playful group interaction. One of the interesting ideas behind the practice is that we can create opportunities for laughter even when nothing particularly funny has happened.

Perhaps most importantly, make time for people who bring out your lighter side. We all know someone whose sense of humor, playful spirit, or wonderfully contagious laugh seems to make the world a little brighter. Those relationships deserve our attention.

And while we're at it, perhaps we can give ourselves permission not to take everything quite so seriously all the time. We don't need to become comedians or manufacture laughter on demand. We can simply notice what brings it into our lives and choose to make room for more of those experiences.

The Human Spirit

There's something bigger here that I don't want us to overlook.

Laughter is only one of the extraordinary experiences available to us as human beings. We also experience curiosity, affection, excitement, wonder, sadness, anger, fear, and countless other emotions, each offering different information, perspectives, and possibilities. None of these emotions is inherently good or bad. They are part of our humanness, and each can serve us in different ways.

We don't need to be happy all the time, nor should we expect ourselves to laugh our way through every difficulty. But we can become more aware of what we're experiencing, recognize the choices available to us, and intentionally create more opportunities for the experiences we want to cultivate.

Somewhere between our responsibilities, ambitions, routines, and the demands of everyday life, it's easy to neglect the playful, spontaneous, silly parts of ourselves. We become so accustomed to getting things done that we sometimes forget the pleasure of simply enjoying ourselves. We may even begin treating laughter as something that happens only when everything else is taken care of.

But perhaps laughter was never meant to wait until our responsibilities were finished.

Perhaps it's one of the experiences that helps us meet those responsibilities with greater energy, perspective, and connection.

And perhaps reclaiming those parts of ourselves isn't about becoming someone different at all.

Perhaps it's about remembering more of who we already are.

Through awareness, we can recognize what we've been missing. Through intentional choices, we can create more opportunities to experience it.

Awareness → Choice → Create.

So this week, I invite you to find something that makes you laugh. Better yet, find someone to laugh with. Watch something ridiculous, share a funny memory, play with your dog, or tell a joke so terrible that everyone groans.

And when the laughter comes, enjoy it! You may be supporting your body, your brain, your relationships, and your overall well-being in ways you hadn't imagined. But even if all you experience is a delightful moment of laughter, isn't that something worth making room for?

Because laughter isn't simply a pleasant interruption in the business of living.

It's part of what makes being alive so wonderfully human.

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Jeneen Masih writes about the human foundations of meaningful lives, offering accessible insights for sophisticated thinkers.