Why You Should Laugh More And Regularly Recall Moments of Fun

Hearty laughter is a good way to jog internally without having to go outdoors.” — Norman Cousin

The immense benefits of laughter to our mental health and general wellbeing came to the limelight after Norman Cousin published his book, Anatomy of an Illness: As Perceived by the Patient.The book explained how the author used laughter and humor to transform his life and overcome an illness that would’ve consumed him.

Ever since different studies have affirmed the serious physiological benefits of laughter especially on individuals that experience it on regular basis.

We enjoy laughter so much that we easily get attracted to folks with a sense of humor. We at times pay money to attend shows and laugh uncontrollably over the funny jokes of comedians because laughter is incredibly enjoyable and very rewarding.

But regardless of how pleasantly fun and immensely beneficial laughter is, most of us don’t strive to add more laughter and fun into our lives. We rarely make the effort to create moments that can engender us to laugh more. Many have also become so aloof that they miss some opportunities to laugh spontaneously.

According to Dr. Lee Berk, an associate professor at Loma Linda University in California and a famous humor researcher: laughter induces the opposite effect of stress. It shuts down the release of stress hormones like cortisol and triggers the production of feel-good neurochemicals like dopamine which have all kinds of calming, anti-anxiety benefits.

Folks that laughs more enjoy the great benefits of laughter which include lower stress level, improved cognitive ability, and immune system. These benefits give them the reason to value laughter. To laugh more spontaneously — and to experience more laughter by spending regular time on hobbies and activities that induce laughter….

Research has also shown that the stress hormone cortisol can negatively affect memory and learning ability especially in the elderly after damaging certain neurons in the brain. A deeper dive by the researchers into cortisol’s connection to memory and whether laughter can reduce the damage cortisol can cause shows a huge decrease of cortisol concentration in the two groups of people that were made to watch a 20 mins funny video. The video watchers also showed greater improvement in memory assessment and huge changes in memory test scores after watching the funny video.

Laughter is free and very rewarding, yet many of us are in great lack of it. We’re too focused on the endless challenges of life that we forget that we can ameliorate some of our challenges by adding more laughter into our lives.

There was a day I hung out with friends. And one of us, a counselor quickly noticed the odd-looking guy among us with an unhappy demeanor. He neither laugh at the jokes nor makes any humorous contribution which was quite unlike him. The counselor didn’t try to find out what the problem was, rather she asked him what his relationship with laughter was like all day?

Their conversation went this way:

“You don’t seem your usual self today. What’s up?”

“I’m good.” He gave a curt response.

“Have you had some laughter before now?”

“Yes”

“Good. Can you quickly recall the encounters that induced the laughter?”

“Ehm….I’m not sure. I’m I supposed to remember all that?”

“Alright. Can you recollect any incident that induced negative emotions in your life today?”

“Yes.”

“So tell me, how come you can easily recall an incident that caused you to be in a foul mood? But you can’t likewise recollect any incident or happy moments that induced some nice feelings and positive emotions?”

He didn’t see this one coming because he first had to adjust his sitting position before responding.

“I’m not sure…I haven’t thought about that. But now that we’re having this conversation, I can clearly remember that I laughed on a few occasions with different people at work today. However, taking time to reflect and remember the fun moments in my life is something I’ve never done.”

That wasn’t the end of their chat, but at the end of it, his mood changed He enjoyed the evening with us.

We also don’t dedicate time to reflect and remember the moments of laughter and joy — dwell on them momentarily so that they can stay longer in our minds. Instead, we quickly forget these beautiful moments thereby giving undue space to bad experiences. And for negative emotions to linger in our minds.

I came to understand how rewarding laughter and memories of fun moments are when I began to dedicate time to recollect the nice experiences I had during the day like moments of laughter, and any act of kindness from people that made me feel great.

As I regularly spend time each day on this worthwhile activity, I gradually began to feel more grateful, less stressed, and happier. All I have to do each night is to sit on my desk with my pen and a journal to recollect and write down the nice moments I had during the day.

This simple exercise gets me back to the incidents and moments that induced laughter and nice feelings. I’ll take some time to replay them in my mind like a favorite movie scene.

Regular adherence to this routine is helping me to condition my mind to remember more positive experiences than negative ones. It also reminds me of how important laughter is and the need to laugh more.

Negative emotions can disconnect you from the feel-good phase and shift you into a feel-bad phase where you mightn’t be able to do anything meaningful until you reconnect back to the feel-good phase which is invigorating and empowering…

And recollecting negative experiences and dwelling in a negative mood becomes easier and normal when you don’t make out time to laugh and to remember the nice times you’re having in your life. This is why you’d easily remember the person that hurt you instead of remembering your gains, your joys, and your accomplishments.

Moments of laughter bring wonderful feelings of liveliness and great excitement that anyone would wish to last longer.

Add more fun and laughter to your life by making a deliberate effort to laugh more. Don’t let a busy lifestyle deny you some opportunities to throw your head backward and laugh out loud. Understand when someone is trying to create a humorous atmosphere during a conversation and release yourself to experience the humor.

Laughter is very rewarding and therapeutic evidenced in the case of Norman Cousin and so many others. Imagine the huge gains you’d record if you put more effort into creating fun and happy moments in your life. This is a good time to add more laughter and humor to your life.

Doing this would allow you to find yourself experiencing little worries and zero stress in your life.

Folks that understand the benefits of laughter create a lifestyle that allows them to laugh more by regularly returning to events, hobbies, and the environment that induces laughter. They’re benefitting from this lifestyle by experiencing a surge in positive emotions that expunge stress-causing unhelpful memories and experiences.

Make out time to reflect and recall the good times. When you reflect; recall, cherish and replay them in your mind, you’d be left desiring to create similar experiences regularly so you can have more of them. You’d also have less space in your mind for negative emotions and more space for positive emotions.

This story was previously published on Medium by the same author.