Laughter Therapy: How To Heal By Laughing A Lot!
Your problems disappear when you sing, dance or laugh. Laughter therapy is a method that is being used more and more. It helps patients with emotional and health problems.
This is a fairly modern approach. We will therefore discuss it in this article. But in reality, laughter has helped heal or solve all kinds of difficult problems since the dawn of mankind.
Read more about it here.
Laughter therapy in history
We humans have laughed since the time we lived in caves and learned how to make fire. It was only much later that the idea arose that laughter can help to heal and influence the body.
In China, for example, the followers of the Tao philosophies taught about smiling. According to them, laughter was an assurance of happiness, good health and longevity.
In the Middle Ages, the court jesters were not only there to amuse the king. The court also felt that this was necessary to aid digestion.
A psychosomatic phenomenon
From the sixteenth century onwards, several philosophers, physicians and psychologists, including Immanuel Kant, claimed that
Laughter is good for your emotional and physical health. It is also one of the most commonly used ways to break out of an awkward situation.
For example, a child laughs three hundred times a day!
Did you know that as a child you laughed about three hundred times a day? This diminishes over time. That decline continues until you stop smiling at all.
But a good sense of humor boosts your defenses. It gives you the chance to deal with your problems.
When we laugh, we feel happy and we see things in a different way.
The benefits of laughter therapy
This is a therapeutic process that uses laughter (among other things). Laughter helps you feel satisfied, happy and full. In addition, for just twenty seconds of laughing, the body does the same job as if it were doing aerobic exercise for three minutes.
Laughter therapy sessions are conducted in groups. Those present follow the suggestions of the specialized supervisors.
What does a session of laughter therapy look like?
They use games, dance, body expression and even massage. The idea is that all participants release their inhibitions and laugh until they can’t anymore.
Another effect is that it relaxes the muscles, relieves tension and encourages natural, spontaneous laughter.
Harmless jokes or pranks in these sessions help the adult participants. They are encouraged to see laughter as a way of life and above all as a form of expression.
Some examples to illustrate
These are some examples of exercises that are used in laughter therapy :
- Blow up a balloon. With every breath you take, you remove something negative.
- Dancing with a balloon tied to your shoes.
- Apply different levels of laughter (from soft laughter to very intense).
- Tickle a partner.
- Listening to a child’s laughter (a laugh that is very contagious).
The benefits of laughing
Still don’t want to participate in a laughter therapy session? Need more encouragement to decide? Then pay attention: we give you an overview of the benefits of laughing.
1. It makes you stronger
We are of course not talking about developing more muscles here. We do talk about tackling diseases.
If you suffer from cold hands or feet, laughing is even better than gloves or socks! This habit increases heat in the body, oxygenates tissues and speeds healing of wounds and diseases.
It also strengthens your immune system, protects you from heart disease and stabilizes metabolic functions.
Also inside
But it does even more: laughter helps to clear the arteries and remove fat (if you suffer from bad cholesterol). It stimulates the production of endorphins in the brain and balances the hormonal system.
2. It clears your mind
When you smile, you forget your worries. But you will also find a solution to your problems more easily. One of the effects is that you begin to realize that the one problem that keeps you up at night isn’t as complicated or serious as it seems.
The result is that laughing reduces stress, anxiety and nervousness. This will affect your quality of life, your relationships and of course your health.
3. It makes you young again
The lines on the sides of your mouth and eyes are not that important. They are a sign that you have experienced good things in the past.
Your skin will be more relaxed. You won’t have as much acne or signs of premature aging anymore. And all you need is a good laugh every day!
4. It helps you to let go of the bad things
We often create rather trivial problems. We fall into the street, the internet no longer works on your phone, you overslept, you burned your finger while cooking… these little annoying things pile up. Then why not laugh at the situation, instead of cursing everything?
You will see things differently. You will also realize that there is a solution for everything.
Laugh away your bad mood
But most of all, what you will see is this: a bad mood is only one path you can take when something happens… but it is not the only way.
