Sometimes all you can do is laugh. That might actually be good for you

There was that time I was struggling to carry a mattress over my head and walked into a wall. There was also a view of me trimming my nose hairs somehow captured as I was getting ready for work.

Throughout their teenage years, my sons secretly filmed me in my worst moments, and every now and again they’ll treat me to an impromptu screening of them all.

Dad’s “greatest hits” are so bad they’re good, and we find ourselves howling with laughter every time my kids bring them out again. By now, I usually know what’s coming but somehow, the highlight reel gets funnier every time.

Bring the ‘dad jokes,’ we need ‘em. (Warning: This story contains actual dad jokes)

Now my sons are in college , and we’re still cracking each other up, which is just as well. There isn’t much else to laugh at these days, whether it’s because of ugly hyper-partisan politics, interminable wars in Ukraine and Iran, the spiraling cost of living, or the horrifying impacts of the climate crisis. That grim reality can leave us feeling stressed out and utterly powerless.

Ironically, perhaps the best thing we can do is laugh. A good chuckle won’t fix all the problems, but it can, at least, make you feel better about your place in the world.

I’m one of those people who laughs often and hard; I’m lucky enough to have some irreverent work colleagues who regularly tickle my funny bone — thanks CNN Sports! — and a wife and two kids who seem to find humor in pretty much everything. I’d never considered whether laughing might have any beneficial health properties until recently. But every time I leave a comedy club with my cheeks hurting, I know I can’t wait for the next show.

“A cheerful heart is good medicine,” Proverbs 17:22 says, and if you’re visiting the birthplace of the 19th century English poet Lord Byron, you’ll see a plaque featuring a famous quote sometimes attributed to him: “Always laugh when you can. It is a cheap medicine.”

Everybody loves a good laugh. It might even be making you healthier.

It’s often said that laughter is the best medicine — and there may be a lot more truth to that than many have realized. A good belly laugh isn’t just an emotional experience; it’s a physical one, too. Deep laughter opens up the chest, boosts oxygen intake and stimulates circulation. What’s more, cracking up triggers chemical changes that prompt the inner lining of blood vessels to dilate and improve blood flow.

“You’re pumping blood, your lungs are expanded,” the American comedian Craig Shoemaker told me before a recent Atlanta show. “Everything happens when you’re laughing. It’s as good as a workout!”

What can a good laugh do for you? Through a systematic review of eight small, short-term studies conducted between 1989 and 2021, endocrinologist Dr. Caroline Kramer and her team identified that a good laugh is linked to a roughly 30% reduction in the stress hormone cortisol.

Kramer, an associate professor at the University of Toronto and a clinician scientist at Mount Sinai’s Leadership Sinai Centre for Diabetes, told CNN that her team’s 2023 study into the impact of spontaneous laughter on stress response was unambiguous.

“Even 10 minutes of laughter can reduce cortisol significantly,” Kramer said. “Our results were of greater importance than I thought they would be.”

The science of laughter and why it’s good for us

It seems almost too good to be true: You can improve your health simply by having a laugh. Kramer admits it can be a hard sell to the cynics who have been shaped by a system that promotes a pill as the solution to every medical problem.

“We tend to look at studies showing outcomes like ‘it reduces mortality, it reduces your time in the hospital, it reduces this, it reduces that,’” she said. “I think overall people tend to undermine interventions that just increase well-being.”

Or as Shoemaker put it, “It’s so important to our wellness, and yet we completely dismiss it, because laughter doesn’t have a lobby.”

Back in the ’90s, Shoemaker created an alter ego called the Lovemaster, a smooth-talking, confident ladies’ man who delivered audacious pickup lines and relationship philosophies in an exaggerated, gravelly baritone voice. Numerous patrons credited him for helping them to conceive, he said.

Michael S. Schwartz/Getty Images/FILE

“This couple came up to me in Michigan, and they said, ‘We want to thank you. We were told we couldn’t have a child,’” he said. The story goes that the couple had gone home from his show, and the husband pretended to be the Lovemaster.

“I guess they must have had fun instead of trying to have a baby — laughter kicks out all the stress, and sure enough they have a baby girl.” It happened again and then again, Shoemaker said. “Someone sent me a photo of a child that was conceived in the parking lot. They didn’t even wait till they got home. It’s hilarious — I still have the photo!”

Shoemaker jokes that he got into comedy so that girls would go to prom with him or his mom would love him, but he was also seeing another side to it. Now, he’s so passionate about promoting the health benefits of laughing that he has made it his life’s work.

“I realized this is truly wonderful medicine for people to be shared,” he said.

He told me the story of his friend, screenwriter Michael Goldberg, who was diagnosed with brain cancer around 2001 and given three months to live. Shoemaker threw himself into work with a cancer facility, trying to find ways for comedy to help Goldberg.

“If only concentrating on the misery of cancer protocols and methodologies, that’s a miserable experience and it doesn’t inspire people to keep going with their healing journey,” he said. “Michael lived 15 years past that prognosis. Wow.” Shoemaker gives some credit to Goldberg’s will to live and the joy he had in his life.

In the process of helping his friend, Shoemaker created a series of workshops and products to help many others. “It’s for people so they can have a reset, a recharge, a reclamation, on the spot, for whatever they’re dealing with,” he explained. “You literally cannot be angry, depressed or have any other feelings except for bliss while you are laughing. Laughter has its own space.”

Jamie Bendall co-owns the Punchline Comedy Club in Atlanta, and he believes that comedy can act as a kind of social glue in these divided times.

Follow these tips if you want to add more laughter and joy into your life

When everyone is laughing in a comedy club, nobody knows who voted for whom. Taken to the extreme, “it’s very hard to both laugh and throw a punch,” Bendall said. When people are facing their toughest hours, he added, “the first sign that things are going to get better is when laughter comes back.”

Of course, diet and exercise are two key ingredients for a long life. “From a health perspective, it’s important to get your 10,000 steps a day , and it’s important to have moderation in your diet and your consumption,” he said. “But I would argue a well-rounded, healthy life includes regular laughter.”

Having a good laugh has always been fun, but your health and well-being are no joke — and something that’s infectious in a good way might just be the therapeutic balm you’ve been missing.

Don Riddell is an anchor and correspondent for CNN’s World Sport.

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还有一次，我费力地把床垫扛过头顶，结果撞到了墙上。另外，还有一张照片不知怎么拍到了我修剪鼻毛的画面，当时我正在准备上班。

在我的儿子们十几岁的时候，他们偷偷地拍摄了我最糟糕的时刻，而且他们时不时会即兴放映这些视频给我看。

爸爸的“经典片段”烂到极致反而成了笑料，每次孩子们拿出来，我们都会捧腹大笑。现在，我通常都能猜到接下来会发生什么，但不知怎的，每次看这些片段，都觉得更有趣了。

快把那些“老爸笑话”带过来，我们需要！（警告：本文包含真实的老爸笑话）

现在我的儿子们都上大学了，我们仍然经常互相逗乐，这真是太好了。如今除了这些，似乎没什么其他值得开怀大笑的事情了，无论是丑陋的党派政治、乌克兰和伊朗没完没了的战争、飞涨的生活成本，还是气候危机带来的可怕影响。这种严峻的现实常常让我们感到压力巨大，无能为力。

讽刺的是，或许我们能做的最好的事就是笑。开怀大笑并不能解决所有问题，但至少可以让你对自己在世界上的位置感觉好一些。

我属于那种经常开怀大笑的人；我很幸运，有一些爱开玩笑、不拘一格的同事，他们经常逗我开心——感谢CNN体育频道！——我的妻子和两个孩子似乎总能从任何事情中找到乐趣。直到最近，我才开始思考大笑是否对健康有益。但每次看完喜剧表演，脸颊都笑得酸痛的时候，我就知道我已经迫不及待地想看下一场了。

“喜乐的心乃是良药，”箴言 17:22 说。如果你去参观 19 世纪英国诗人拜伦勋爵的出生地，你会看到一块牌匾，上面刻着一句有时被认为是他的名言：“能笑的时候就笑吧，笑是廉价的良药。”

人人都喜欢开怀大笑。它甚至可能对你的健康有益。

人们常说笑是最好的良药——这句话的道理或许比许多人意识到的还要深刻。开怀大笑不仅是一种情感体验，也是一种生理体验。深沉的笑声可以打开胸腔，增加氧气摄入，促进血液循环。更重要的是，大笑会引发一系列化学变化，促使血管内壁扩张，从而改善血液流动。

“笑的时候血液循环加快，肺部扩张，”美国喜剧演员克雷格·舒梅克在最近一次亚特兰大演出前告诉我。“笑的时候一切都会好起来的。这简直就像锻炼一样！”

开怀大笑能给你带来什么好处？内分泌学家卡罗琳·克雷默博士及其团队通过对 1989 年至 2021 年间进行的八项小型短期研究进行系统回顾发现，开怀大笑与压力激素皮质醇水平降低约 30% 有关。

多伦多大学副教授、西奈山西奈山糖尿病领导力中心临床科学家克雷默告诉 CNN，她的团队在 2023 年开展的关于自发性笑声对压力反应影响的研究结果非常明确。

克莱默说：“即使只是10分钟的笑声也能显著降低皮质醇水平。我们的研究结果比我想象的更重要。”

笑的科学原理及其对我们有益的原因

这听起来简直好得令人难以置信：只要开怀大笑就能改善健康。克莱默承认，对于那些深受“药丸解决一切健康问题”理念影响的愤世嫉俗者来说，这很难让人信服。

“我们往往关注那些显示‘降低死亡率’、‘缩短住院时间’、‘减少这个’、‘减少那个’等结果的研究，”她说。“我认为，总体而言，人们往往会低估那些仅仅提升幸福感的干预措施。”

正如舒梅克所说，“笑声对我们的健康非常重要，但我们却完全忽视了它，因为笑声没有代言人。”

上世纪90年代，舒梅克创造了一个名为“爱情大师”的化身，他能言善辩、自信满满，是风流倜傥的万人迷，用夸张沙哑的男中音讲述大胆的搭讪金句和恋爱哲学。他说，许多顾客都认为他帮助她们成功怀孕。

Michael S. Schwartz/Getty Images/文件

“有一对夫妇在密歇根州找到我，他们说：‘我们想感谢你。医生告诉我们无法生育。’”他说道。据说，这对夫妇看完他的演出回家后，丈夫假扮成“爱情大师”。

“我猜他们当时肯定是在玩得开心，而不是想着要孩子——笑声能消除所有压力，果不其然，他们就生了个女宝宝。”舒梅克说，这种事还发生了好几次。“有人给我发了一张照片，照片里的孩子是在停车场怀上的。他们甚至都没等到回家。真是太搞笑了——我到现在还留着那张照片呢！”

舒梅克开玩笑说，他当初进入喜剧界是为了让女孩们愿意和他一起去参加毕业舞会，或者让他的妈妈喜欢他，但他同时也看到了喜剧的另一面。如今，他热衷于推广笑对健康的益处，并以此为毕生事业。

“我意识到这是一种非常好的药物，应该与人们分享，”他说。

他给我讲了他朋友、编剧迈克尔·戈德堡的故事。戈德堡大约在2001年被诊断出患有脑癌，医生说他只有三个月的生命。舒梅克全身心投入到癌症治疗中心的工作中，试图找到用喜剧来帮助戈德堡的方法。

“如果只关注癌症治疗方案和方法带来的痛苦，那确实是一种痛苦的经历，也无法激励人们继续康复之路，”他说。“迈克尔比医生预想的活了15年。哇。”舒梅克认为，戈德堡的顽强求生意志和他对生活的热爱功不可没。

在帮助朋友的过程中，舒梅克创建了一系列工作坊和产品，以帮助更多的人。“这能让人们在当下就能重置、充电、重拾状态，无论他们面临什么问题，”他解释说。“当你开怀大笑时，你真的不会感到愤怒、沮丧或任何其他情绪，只有幸福。笑声自有其独特的空间。”

杰米·本德尔是亚特兰大 Punchline 喜剧俱乐部的共同所有人，他认为在当今这个分裂的时代，喜剧可以起到一种社会粘合剂的作用。

如果你想为生活增添更多欢笑和快乐，请遵循以下建议。

在喜剧俱乐部里，当大家都在大笑时，没人知道谁投了谁的票。本德尔说，极端情况下，“既要笑又要打人，这非常困难”。他还补充道，当人们面临最艰难的时刻时，“事情即将好转的第一个迹象就是笑声的回归。”

当然，饮食和运动是长寿的两大关键因素。“从健康的角度来看，每天走够一万步很重要，饮食和摄入量适度也很重要，”他说。“但我认为，全面健康的生活也包括经常开怀大笑。”

开怀大笑总是令人愉悦，但你的健康和幸福可不是儿戏——而一些具有积极感染力的事物，或许正是你一直以来所缺失的疗愈良方。

唐·里德尔是 CNN 世界体育频道的播音员和记者。

每周精选健康生活小贴士，助您轻松享受美好生活。订阅 CNN 的“生活更美好”电子报，获取提升幸福感的资讯和实用工具。