There’s a reason we crack jokes with our friends, buy tickets to comedy shows, and seek romantic partners with a solid sense of humor: It feels good to giggle. But while bursting into laughter provides temporary happiness, how else does it impact our lives? And do those feel-good moments translate to any tangible boons for our health?
To find the answers, we spoke to clinical psychologist Michelle Drapkin, founder of the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Center. “Laughter is one of those things people assume must be good for you. And like many ideas that feel intuitively true, it has attracted plenty of enthusiastic claims and not always great science. But if you look at the research carefully, there are a few findings that are genuinely interesting,” Drapkin told Nice News.
She added that its effects are “real enough to remind us that laughter isn’t just something happening in your head. It’s also a physical experience.” Read on to learn more about the upsides of cracking up, and get Drapkin’s advice on incorporating more of it into your life.
The Benefits of Laughter Are No Joke
There’s a lot going on beneath the surface when we laugh, according to Drapkin. “Your breathing changes, your heart rate goes up for a moment, and then things tend to settle back down,” she explained. “Some studies suggest laughter can temporarily lower stress hormones like cortisol and increase pain tolerance, possibly through endorphin release.”
Research also suggests that spontaneous laughter can boost your immune system: One study found that after watching a funny video for an hour, participants experienced increases in natural killer cell and white blood cell activity. And there’s evidence that in addition to temporarily increasing your heart rate, chuckling may help improve blood flow, and making it a daily habit could reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.
When it comes to the mental health effects, giggling may help boost mood, well-being, and quality of life, as well as lower anxiety, depression, stress, and fatigue, according to a 2022 review. Drapkin cautions that laughter isn’t necessarily a stress or anxiety cure, as its effects may be short-lived — but its prevalence in your life can be an indicator of social connection and overall wellness.
“Laughter is super social,” she said. “When researchers look at real conversations, they find something interesting: People laugh far more during ordinary interaction than when they’re hearing jokes. In everyday life, laughter seems to function less like a reaction to comedy and more like a signal between people.”
These interactions communicate “things like friendliness, agreement, and shared understanding,” she pointed out. “And those signals matter, because feeling socially connected is one of the strongest predictors of well-being we know.”
How to Live, Laugh, Love
Looking for more specifics on which type of laughter you should incorporate into your life? Psychologists have broken down the difference between spontaneous (or “genuine”) and simulated (or “fake”) — and while studies on the former are more prevalent, recent research suggests that when the latter is used in laughter yoga, blood pressure and depression may decrease.
For the most part, though, the findings on simulated laughter “are mixed and the effects are modest,” Drapkin said. “Your body isn’t completely fooled.” Instead, she advised, striving for shared laughter may be a more worthy pursuit. The 2022 review backs this up, noting that when applied in groups, laughter interventions led to more effective boosts in physical health.
“Laughing with people you feel comfortable around, in situations that allow for playfulness and ease, is likely doing more psychologically than laughing alone at something on a screen,” Drapkin explained. “From a behavioral science perspective, laughter might be less like a ‘treatment’ and more like a marker. It tends to show up when people are socially connected, relaxed, and engaged with each other. And those conditions are strongly associated with well-being.”
Regarding how often you should aim to laugh, there’s largely speculative research suggesting that “laughter prescriptions” involving belly-busting bouts for 30 minutes to one hour, once a week or even less, may have positive effects. But rather than focusing on scheduled timeframes of laughter (which doesn’t sound very enjoyable anyway), Drapkin recommends asking yourself, “How often do situations that lead to laughter show up in your life?”
Perhaps the answer is “not as often as I’d like” — and if that’s the case, the solution isn’t to force yourself to giggle more. “It’s to look at the ingredients that tend to produce it in the first place: time with people you enjoy, moments of playfulness, conversations that feel easy,” she said. “When those things are present, laughter tends to take care of itself. And when it shows up regularly, it’s usually a pretty good sign that something else in life is going right.”
If you’re looking for ideas on how to incorporate more meaningful connections into your life, check out our deep dives on finding a “third place,” making intergenerational friends, and building relationships with neighbors. And if you’re craving some immediate laughter, check out these stand-up comedy clips and hilarious animal videos.
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