Get out your tickling sticks

Laughter, they say, is the best medicine. ‘They’ are obviously idiots. It quite clearly isn’t.

If – for example (albeit an over-simplified, marginally over-blown one) – upon consulting a medical professional regarding a rather nasty infection gnawing away at your innards you had prescribed to you the complete works of Woody Allen you would, quite reasonably, have a few questions for the doctor. If they offered up a cocktail of antibiotics, you probably wouldn’t even so much as ask the name of the drugs before your first swig. So it seems obvious that this laughter/medicine link is simply cosy phraseology, with no actual link to biology. Yet science has imitated art in the last few years as associations between the two are, it seems, becoming apparent. So much so, in fact, that the study of the health benefits of laughter now has its own name – indeed, if you do ever happen upon a professor of parody, a doctor of drollery or a medic of mirth, then you’ll know they are proud members of the Gelotological circle.

So what, exactly, do they think laughing will achieve medically? Well, so many things that we shall have to resort to bullet points. The gelotologists say that a good, hearty guffaw can: • Lower blood pressure. • Increase vascular blood flow and oxygenation of the blood. • Give a workout to the diaphragm and abdominal, respiratory, facial, leg, and back muscles. • Reduce certain stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. • Increase the response of tumour- and disease-killing cells such as Gamma-interferon and T-cells. • Defend against respiratory infections – even reducing the frequency of colds – by immunoglobulon in saliva. • Increase memory and learning, (a study at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, found humour during instruction led to increased test scores). • Improve alertness, creativity.

As close, then, as it is possible to get to a miracle cure. And of course this is a universal physiological response in humanity. Professor Sophie Scott of University College of London – one of the growing numbers of the gelotology community – has found that across cultures, laughter is the most recognisable positive human sound. It transcends all boundaries – political, racial, language…all of them. Someone who lives in isolation from modern life in Southeast Asia, for example, might not be able to identify the clipped, muted exclamations of happiness from a stuffy British toff but would certainly recognise their laugh – however sardonic it may be. So – a burgeoning topic of scientific discourse then? Not in the least as it turns out. Professor Scott says that scientists have not been able to sufficiently explain laughter as an expression of emotion because the sciences – especially psychology – is morbidly obsessed with studying negative emotions instead of positive ones. This has meant there is a lot of mystery surrounding laughter; least of all why we do it in the first place.

That said, a few have attempted to put the pieces of this comedic puzzle together. Dr Jim Davies (…note the all-important ‘e’ before the ‘s’) is a Cognitive Neuroscientist at Carlton University in Canada, and also the director of the brilliantly named Science of Imagination Laboratory. He points in his book, Riveted: The Science of Why Jokes Makes Us Laugh, to the idea that laughter occurs when we experience a benign violation – that is to say we laugh when we experience something that is initially frightening or unexpected, but turns out to be safe. So – we don’t yet fully understand why we do it, but whatever the evolutionary reasons it is clear laughter is physiologically good for us. And, if there has been a hold-up in understanding this because of a natural bias in science towards emotional negativity, then we say; psychologists and neuroscientists of the world – time to lighten up and get out your tickling sticks.

To get things started, a short quip: What’s the difference between a psychologist and a magician? A magician pulls rabbits out of hats, whereas a psychologist pulls habits out of rats. …No? Anyone?...Is this thing even on?