The healing power of laughter - Philosophers have grappled with the question of what makes us human for thousands of years. Is it speech, consciousness, culture or something else? After crying, laughter is the next big communicative milestone in human development and evolves as we grow from a baby's giggle into a complex social tool. But what is laughter? What is its purpose? And are humans truly the only creatures with the ability to laugh?
Not according to Robert Provine, a professor of psychology and neuroscience and laughter expert, whose studies of primate behaviour discovered that chimpanzees emit a panting noise when they play that sounds like laughter and which is interpreted by other chimps as a sign of safety. Robert believes that this play-panting is the starting block of human laughter.
Dr Jaak Panksepp, an animal-emotions expert at Washington State University, used high-frequency sound detector equipment to record rats and discovered that they produce ultrasonic chirps, particularly when they appeared to be playfully interacting with each other. But although the sounds the rats made showed all the characteristics of laughter, Panksepp is careful not to label it as such.
"A lot of people don't like that word. Giving human qualities to animals is a no-no since we are [above] other creatures of the world," he says.
Laughter for the adult human is a Swiss Army knife of communication, which can be used to berate others or to make them feel good. We are born with the physical ability to laugh and learn how to use it as a powerful social tool as we grow. And in order to do this, we need to develop a sense of humour.
Humour beings
Author of Laughology: The Science of Laughter and behaviourist, Stephanie Davies, is one of the UK's pre-eminent laughter experts. A former stand-up comedienne, she founded Laughology, an enterprise that teaches individuals in the public and private sector how to improve productivity through humour and laughter. She explains the distinction between the two:
"Laughter is a response; it's usually the outward manifestation of humour but doesn't always have to be about something that is funny. It can be used to fit into a social situation or it can be a way of coping with a situation.
"Humour is a system for processing information and constantly changes depending on factors such as age and context; a doctor may have a dark sense of humour among his or her peers, but change this when with family.
"Different factors also impact how people develop a sense of humour. A child knows that laughter is good and learns that actions that get a laugh are positive. He or she will start to develop an awareness of humour based on the reactions of those around them."
In a pioneering project in an underprivileged part of Bradford in the UK, Stephanie has used principles from her Laughology model to promote resilience and help people cope in difficult situations. She has helped train a team of community ‘champions' to become more positively engaged in their community.
Stephanie explains: "There is a happiness debate going on internationally at the moment and governments in countries such as the UK and France are looking at ways of measuring happiness for political purposes. In an ideal world it would be great if we were all happy all of the time, but we are not, we are human beings and it is healthy to be sad. What really counts is the way people cope with difficulties. The more resilient you are, the more likely you are to be happy. The Bradford project is about creating resilient communities through a series of thinking skills, which we teach people. The real key to happiness on a society level is to enable people to feel more supported by one another and to have friendlier communities."
Shiny happy people
The growing field of happiness economics has become more important to policy-makers since the traditional method for assessing national well-being - by calculating a nation's gross domestic product (GDP) - passed its sell-by-date in the Sixties and Seventies. GDP was an accurate indicator of the state of the nation following the depression of the 1930s and during and after the war years, but it began to become irrelevant as populations attained modern-day levels of wealth and financial stability. In most Western nations, studies showed that, on reaching a certain level of GDP - usually some time in the 1970s - lifestyle satisfaction either remained static or decreased.
The concept of surveying national happiness has been around for many years. The Himalayan nation of Bhutan pioneered the idea in 1972 with a gross national happiness index, intended to remind citizens that spiritual values were as important as wealth. Up until Puerto Rico took the crown last year, Bhutan was consistently recognised as the happiest nation on Earth.
Bhutan's idea was taken up by the United Nations, which devised the Human Development Index, a yearly welfare indicator. In Europe, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been at the forefront of the happiness movement. In 2009, he proposed replacing GDP with Net National Product, which would take into account personal contentment, the quality of public services and free services available within communities. At the time Sarkozy urged other nations to get on board and employed US economist Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the 2001 Nobel economics prize, and Amartya Sen, who won the prize in 1998 for his work on welfare economics, to help formulate a workable happiness scheme.
Stephanie continues: "The positive effects of laughter and happiness work on so many levels - nationally and individually - and we can all tap into them. We all hold memories that we perceive to be humorous and in the Laughology model, we encourage people to get in touch with these laughter triggers to help them feel positive, which in turn has an impact on emotions and a person's emotional responses to situations.
"If we laugh we feel better about a situation; if we see something in a different way and find the humour in it we can almost take a mental step back from it and not be so negatively emotionally involved. Using laughter in this way promotes resilience, positivity and well-being, not just for individuals but for communities."
The power of laughs
The academic study of laughter and humour is still a relatively new field but there is a growing weight of material that proves how beneficial they are.
One of the best-documented examples of the impact laughter can have on health involves writer Norman Cousins, who was diagnosed with a debilitating spinal disease in 1964. Rather than stay in hospital he checked into a hotel, where he watched as much comedy as he could, including episodes of Candid Camera and Marx Brothers' movies. He found that, over time, the laughter stimulated chemicals in his body that allowed him several hours of pain-free sleep.
More recently, the University of Maryland conducted a study where people were shown funny movies to gauge the effect on cardiac health. The results showed that laughter appeared to cause the inner-lining of blood vessels - the endothelium - to dilate, thus increasing blood flow.
Biologically, laughter reduces stress hormones like cortisol and increases health-enhancing hormones like endorphins. It also increases the number of antibody-producing cells and enhances the effectiveness of T cells, leading to a stronger immune system.
But laughter isn't always a healer. It is contagious and in rare instances that contagion can reach dangerous epidemic levels, as it did in 1962 in Tanzania, when there was an outbreak of hysterical laughter near the village of Kashasha on the western coast of Lake Victoria. The epidemic began with one girl laughing hysterically in a classroom in a boarding school for girls and spread throughout the building. The school was forced to close down and the students were sent home. The epidemic then spread to villages where some of the affected girls lived. In April and May in one village, 217 people had laughing attacks. In addition to hysterical laughter, symptoms included pain, fainting, respiratory problems, rashes, crying and random screaming. In total 14 schools were shut down and 1,000 people were affected.
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