Make 'em Laugh

Make ‘em Laugh. Don’t you know everyone wants to laugh?

Donald O’Connor sang those words in the classic 1952 movie, Singing in the Rain. The need to laugh is more pressing than ever in a world beset with problems and perhaps is a need even harder to satisfy. But this Sunday National Let’s Laugh Day invites us all to find a reason to smile.

Just think of the weight of millions of smiling faces creating a cosmic force in this weary world. It might be akin to the Butterfly Effect, which argues that the beating of an insect’s wings on one side of the world can ultimately affect the weather on the other side.

I actually looked up the Butterfly Effect before writing that last sentence and learned that “in chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state.” Just reading that overly complex gobbledygook made me smile.

There is scientific evidence, however, that a smile can change the world. The old adage, “Laughter is the best medicine,” as it turns out, is true. Some studies have shown that laughter may boost the immune system, relieve tension and help you relax. It may even burn a few calories. A good belly laugh, the kind that leaves you breathless and your stomach aching, will burn 30 to 40 calories. Maybe that is why the blithest spirit I know, a woman who relishes the absurd moments of life, is also one of the slimmest. Perhaps we should all lighten up—in more ways than one.

Don’t feel like smiling? Try faking it until you make it. Evidence suggests that forcing a smile helps one to recover faster from stress, reduces your heart rate and boosts your mood and happiness level. Dr. Isha Gupta, a neurologist from IGEA Brain and Spine explains, a smile spurs a chemical reaction in the brain, releasing certain hormones including dopamine and serotonin. Dopamine increases our feelings of happiness. Serotonin release is associated with reduced stress.

And guess what? A smile is contagious. One Swedish study found we can’t help but react with a smile when we see someone smiling, creating an infectious loop of happiness. Perhaps that is why our long need to hide our smiles behind masks has created so much anger and pain. People can even “hear” a smile. Try smiling when you are talking on the phone and listen to what it does to the quality of your voice.

So, let’s do it, folks. Sunday, let’s all smile so hard we look like the Cheshire Cat. Maybe the effect will spread around the world.