World Laughter Day

Laughing's fun but did you know that it might also be beneficial for your health?

The inaugural World Laughter Day was celebrated on May 10, 1998, in Mumbai, India, and was organized by Dr. Madan Kataria. A beneficial and strong feeling that has all of the components necessary for people to improve themselves and the world in a peaceful and positive manner. Laughter makes you happy. Even when the laughter has subsided, you still have a pleasant feeling. Through terrible events, disappointments, and loss, humour may help you maintain a bright, hopeful attitude. One of the most important advantages of laughter is that it makes you feel better! You'll be a more positive person if you laugh a lot, and this may affect your life in a variety of ways.

The day is now commemorated all around the world.

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Origin Of World Laughing Day Date

Dr. Madan Kataria, the creator of the international Laughter Yoga movement, established World Laughter Day in 1998. The facial feedback theory, which states that a person's facial expressions may affect their emotions, led Dr. Kataria, an Indian family doctor, to launch the Laughter Yoga movement. International Laughter Day is a good manifestation of world peace, with the goal of raising a global sense of fraternity and friendliness via laughter. It is most commonly commemorated by crowds of people gathered in public areas only for the purpose of laughing. Thanks to the Laughter Yoga movement, which now has thousands of Laughter Clubs in over 105 countries, its popularity has exploded. It is now commemorated all around the globe.

Why Is Laughter The Best Medicine?

Laughter is beneficial to your health. It is, in fact, one of the greatest medications on the planet. It helps to enhance your immune system, improve your mood, reduce discomfort, and protect you from the negative effects of stress. One of the most powerful methods to restore your mind and body is to laugh. Above all, this priceless therapy is pleasurable, free, and simple to use.

Laughter, it is known, is a powerful medicine. It brings individuals together in ways that lead to positive physical and mental improvements. Laughter boosts your immune system, boosts your mood, relieves pain, and protects you from the harmful effects of stress. Nothing works faster or more consistently to rebalance your mind and body than a good chuckle. 

The capacity to laugh freely and regularly has so much power to heal and refresh that it's a fantastic resource for overcoming challenges, improving relationships, and promoting both physical and mental health. 

• Laughter unwinds the entire body. A big, hearty chuckle relaxes your muscles for up to 45 minutes, relieving physical tension and stress.

• Laughter helps to strengthen the immune system. Laughter boosts your sickness resistance by lowering stress hormones and strengthening immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies.

• When we laugh, endorphins, the body's natural feel-good chemicals, are released. Endorphins create a general sensation of well-being and can even alleviate pain momentarily.

• Laughter is good for the heart. Laughter improves blood vessel function and boosts blood flow, which can help you avoid a heart attack or other cardiovascular issues.

• Laughter is a great way to burn calories. It's hardly a replacement for working out at the gym, but one researcher found that laughing for 10 to 15 minutes a day may burn around 40 calories—enough to lose three to four pounds in a year.

Laughter Therapy

Laughter's therapeutic powers have been lauded since biblical times, with the proverb "A cheerful heart doeth good like a medicine" appearing in the book of Proverbs. However, when it comes to modern-day laughing therapy, you should think about Cousins. More specifically, Norman Cousins' 1979 book "Anatomy of an Illness (As Perceived by the Patient)." 

Laughter provides more than a temporary reprieve from grief and pain; it also gives you the confidence and strength to seek out new sources of significance and hope. Even in the most trying of circumstances, a laugh–or even just a smile–can make you feel a lot better. And it's true that laughter is contagious—just hearing it makes your brain want to smile and join in. A laughing therapy session is just as likely to include Garfield as it is to have a laughter coach begging you to pretend your arms are paws and howl with laughter.

Alternatively, you could be asked to practice lawnmower laughing, in which you pretend to start a mower with a few warm-up chuckles before ramping up to strong laughter. People who run laughing therapy sessions have discovered that false chuckles generally give way to genuine ones. You'll have more energy to fight if you choose to laugh and cultivate happiness, and you won't have to put your life on pause due to illness. It holds true for anything from sickness to working with your worst enemy: when you find ways to laugh and be joyful, you stay in control, even if everything else seems to be out of your control.

Laughter And Hormones

Endorphins – often known as "feel-good hormones" – are released in brain areas involved for arousal and emotion, according to researchers from Finland and the United Kingdom. Endorphins are peptides that interact with opioid receptors in the brain to alleviate pain and elicit pleasurable emotions.

Furthermore, the study found that the more opioid receptors people have in brain areas involved with emotion processing, the more social laughing they participate in.

Prof. Lauri Nummenmaa of the Turku PET Centre at the University of Turku in Finland states, "Our findings emphasize that endorphin release produced by social laughter may be an essential route that promotes the development, reinforcement, and maintenance of social connections between humans." Prof. Nummenmaa and colleagues recruited 12 healthy men to participate in their research.

A radioactive substance that attaches to opioid receptors in the brain was administered to the participants. The researchers were able to track the production of endorphins and other peptides that bind to opioid rectors using positron emission tomography (PET) imaging.

PET scans were performed twice on the participants. The first scan was done after each subject spent 30 minutes alone in a room, and the second scan was done after they spent 30 minutes watching video clips of their close friends that made them laugh. The researchers discovered that in the thalamus, caudate nucleus, and anterior insula areas of the brain, social laughing resulted in a substantial increase in endorphin release. These are areas of the brain that control arousal and emotional awareness.

According to the researchers, participants with more opioid receptors in the cingulate and orbitofrontal cortices of the brain were likewise more likely to chuckle in response to their friends' video clips.

The cingulate cortex is engaged in emotion processing and formation, whereas the orbitofrontal cortex is involved in a variety of emotional activities.

Prof. Nummenmaa believes that the pleasant and soothing effects of endorphin release may communicate safety and create emotions of unity. “The link between opioid receptor density and laughing rate also implies that individual variations in sociability might be explained by the opioid system.”