Laughter is a universal language. You learn to laugh at around 17 days of age—and continue to guffaw, chuckle, and giggle throughout your lifetime. And that’s a good thing because laughing as medicine may be more than a fun adage.

While it’s no substitute for modern medicine, evidence proves laughter is good for you. It also helps to share a laugh. It’s a great way to connect with others. Laughter can ease tense situations, help form friendships, and ultimately, just make you feel good.

Laughter vs. Humor

What’s funny and how you respond to it are two different things. Humor is anything that evokes a response to a story or an observation that shifts your normal expectations.

For example, the idea of a duck walking into a bar to order a drink is funny because you know ducks prefer ponds over pubs—and they don’t drink alcohol. The joke teller is trying to share a silly story to test your imagination and elicit a response.

Humor ranges from droll, deadpan, morbid, farcical, highbrow, sophomoric, silly, and ironic. Regardless of classification, your physical response to humor is laughter. It manifests verbally and through traditional gestures—like smiling, shoulder shrugging, and knee slapping.

The Mechanisms of Laughing

Let’s say you just heard a really funny joke. Instantly, the corners of your mouth go up to form a smile. You emit a series of “ha-ho-ha-hos” while slapping your knee. Your chest might hurt from laughing. It’s even possible you have tears running down your cheeks. And if it was a really, really good joke, you might even start to blackout.

Your body reacts the moment your brain processes something as funny. The zygomaticus major—the strong muscle that stretches across your cheek—contracts your mouth into a smile. The rest of your 20 facial muscles are stimulated into action, causing your eyes to shut and your cheeks to involuntarily move back and forth. Tear ducts are activated.

The sound of laughter comes from your respiratory system going into distress. The epiglottis—a leaf-shaped flap that prevents food from entering the windpipe—flutters, causing a partial closure of the larynx. And while you’re laughing, your lungs are not receiving enough oxygen. This can cause your face to flush, or in extreme circumstances, cause you to blackout.

It’s commonly believed the other physical indicators of laughter, like slapping your leg, titling your head back, or shaking your hands, are etiquette laughs. This behavior is a way to connect with a group by exaggerating your approval of the joke.

Laughing as Medicine—The Physical Benefits

It’s no joke that laughing can be good for your health. For starters, your immune system benefits from ample laughs in a day. People who laugh have an increase in T cells and natural killer cells (NK cells). These powerful members of the immune system help fight off invaders and keep you healthy. Laughter can also reduce stress and improve NK cell activity, thereby helping support your immunity.

Laughter is also good for your heart. Has your body ever felt sore after a good laugh? Researchers have discovered that intense laughter gives your body a short burst of aerobic exercise. A hard laugh can increase your heart rate, respiratory level, and oxygen consumption. While laughing isn’t a good substitute for regular exercise, a hearty chuckle does provide physical perks.

The benefits of laughter can extend to help your entire cardiovascular system. Blood vessels, like the arteries and veins that are primary to the circulatory system, are responsible for transporting blood throughout your body. They circulate blood to and from your heart. All blood vessels have an inner lining—the endothelium—allowing them to relax and expand, increasing blood flow.

Evidence exists that laughter helps your blood vessels function more effectively by engaging the endothelium. When you’re stressed or unhappy, your body may release adrenaline and noradrenalin—hormones that cause blood vessels to constrict. Laughter or happiness can limit the release of these hormones, lessening stress on your blood vessels and improving their structure.

And funny enough, laughing gas—nitric oxide—can be released into your bloodstream while you’re having a chuckle. Nitric oxide is produced throughout the human body. It’s a vasodilator, meaning it relaxes the endothelium, helping to widen the blood vessel. A good belly laugh releases beta-endorphins into your bloodstream. Because you’re feeling good from the endorphins, cells are triggered to release additional nitric oxide into your bloodstream, relaxing your blood pressure.

The physical benefits of laughter don’t end there. When it comes to pain tolerance, laughing as medicine is no joke. As you laugh, endorphins may be released into your bloodstream, giving you a calming feeling. Laughing also requires your body to take deeper breaths, which can help relax your muscles.

Laughing is also key to memory. Teachers who incorporate humor into their lectures create a less stressful learning environment. Students were more likely to remember key points from a lecture where the teacher interjected jokes about relevant topics. The findings suggest contextual humor can help you retain information.

As you age, if you associate humor with information, you’re more likely to transfer short-term memories into long-term memories. Seniors who engage in fun, light-hearted activities are more likely to remember what they’ve done.

Unstress and Build Connection with a Good Laugh

When something tickles your funny bone, your body rewards you with a rush of hormones: cortisol, epinephrine, and dopamine. Laughter can even naturally produce endorphins, feel-good hormones that help with pain.

Individuals who laugh 15 or more times a day can increase the number of antibodies in their system. A daily dose of giggles and smiles can help support your immune system while limiting the physical effects of stress.

Although anger, guilt, and grief aren’t usually associated with laughter, it’s quite effective when dealing with intense emotions. Even a small chuckle can help put situations into perspective and give you the opportunity to reshape your view of events. That’s because laughter provides a distraction from negative emotions. Psychologists believe humor is even valuable to lessen the effects of threatening situations.

The social benefits of laughter are endless. And they aren’t just reserved for the deep belly laugh. Simple acts of kindness or courtesy—including a heartfelt smile—can replicate the feelings of laughter. You can elevate the general mood of the people around you simply by laughing and smiling.

Laughter is characteristically contagious. Consider this: when you see two people sharing a laugh at a distance, there’s a good chance you will smile, too. Humans mirror each other. It starts in infancy with babies copying their parents’ behavior. As you create social bonds with others, it’s natural to draw upon past positive mannerisms and try to replicate them. Your body naturally smiles as a reaction to pleasurable experiences, so it’s normal for others—who aren’t even sharing the positive experience—to mimic a smile.

Scientists have suggested that laughter was a precursor to language. This theory is wrapped up in the social brain hypothesis. This popular notion says humans’ brains are larger than other animals because early humans lived in large groups. The brain developed into a larger organ due to the demand to remember other members of the group and the relationship between each individual.

This gave rise to the importance of socializing. Unable to vocalize emotion, early humans emitted short bursts of laughter to signify pleasure to other members of the group. As humans physically developed the ability to speak, laughter remained a way of communicating feelings of appreciation to other group members.

A Good Dose of Laughter

Exercise can help keep your body in motion. A healthy diet can give your body the right nutrients. And a good dose of laughter is excellent to keep your spirits up, improve mood, and naturally make you feel better. So, it’s important to maintain a healthy, humorous perspective on life.

That makes the answer to the original question ‘is laughing as medicine a ridiculous, joke-worthy concept?’ a resounding no. Even if it won’t replace modern medical practices, laughter can be part of your healthy lifestyle.

Everyone finds different things funny. But if you can increase the amount of laughter in your life, you’ll be better able to deal with stressful situations, increase creativity, support your health, and have a more positive outlook to take on your day.

You’re driving along the road on autopilot, hardly paying attention, and then a nearly perceptible swerve. HONK! HONK! Your neck jerks. Your eyes snap to alert. And your hands grip the wheel. Another driver had laid into their horn, bringing you back to reality.

Whether you’re behind the wheel or in the passenger seat, the scene is scary. But it’s all too familiar.

Learning to drive involves a slew of safety tips, routines, and considerations. But perhaps the most impactful tidbit is limiting or avoiding all distractions.

And what’s true on the road is also true at home. Just like fiddling with controls and music in the car can jeopardize safety, distractions during quality family time can be just as costly at home. Instead of connecting meaningfully, you might crash and burn.

Spending quality time to connect with family and loved ones is enjoyable. But the new norm of constant interaction with technological devices puts those personal connections at risk. When you don’t make intentional choices to take breaks from your screens, your familial (and other) relationships can suffer.

So, before discussing technology’s role in the crash, let’s take a closer look at family relationships and the quality time required to maintain them. 

Quality Family Time: Curating Connections with Your Clan

When each person is fully present and offers their undivided attention to others, that’s quality family time. Going back to the driving analogy, quality family time is what ensures a smooth, safe, and enjoyable ride.

But it might be hard to achieve with the blur of busy schedules and technology. Tackling the dual threat of busyness and distraction is tough. So, first let’s focus on the variable of time.

You probably have family or close friends with whom you want to become or stay close. Conflicting schedules and shrinking free time are challenges embedded in that endeavor. Parents and partners might have busy, full-time work schedules. And if you have kids, they’re likely busy with school, extracurricular activities, friends, and hobbies. It can be difficult to find where you and your loved ones’ schedules align.

The good news? Despite jam-packed days, you can maximize the free time you do have.

Some researchers argue it’s not quantity of time with friends and family that matters. Quality is the goal. This means it’s more impactful to spend a focused hour with a loved one rather than several hours without fully engaging.

Consider reading and discussing a book with a family member, only for an hour. While it may seem short, it’s efficient. Like a bullet train, this approach is a smooth, enjoyable ride with no traffic jams, stoplights, or distractions.

Such an activity carries more weight than the alternative: sitting next to one another, in silence, watching movies. In this instance, the activity is longer, but the connection is lacking. Instead of a short, smooth ride, it’s more like a long road trip down a bumpy road. You’re there with someone you love, but the ride can wear on all the passengers.

The destination in both cases is the same: time spent with family. But the route to get there can look different. Route planning is worth it, and your connections will deepen because of your effort.

Tips for Creating More Quality Family Time

You’re ready to hop on the quality-time train, but don’t know where to start. The thing is: there’s no right way to do it. You can get creative. Quality family time doesn’t have to be serious or complex. Simple activities and just catching up can do the trick.

Here are some ideas to get you started:

• When conversing, pay attention by being an active listener. Active listening isn’t just about hearing. It also involves eye contact, body language, and reflection. Eye contact lets the speaker know you’re present. Body language can show you’re intentional and a willing participant. This could be as simple as leaning in, squaring your hips toward the speaker, or keeping your arms relaxed rather than crossed. Lastly, use reflection in your responses. Reflection can be a simple paraphrase of what you’ve heard the speaker say. This lets them know you’ve heard and understood, what they’ve said. It can deepen the connection and invite further conversation.
• Build a playlist together and have a listening party. This is an especially fun idea if you do it with someone who’s much older or younger than you. Crossing over into the culture of another generation can be fun and help you better understand one another.
• Establish your own family traditions. You can set aside time each week or month to dedicate to a family activity you do consistently. This could be board games, cooking competition nights, days at the museum, or other family outings like bike rides or hikes.
• Work as a team. Assign every family member a chore (parents included!) so everyone lends a helping hand. Holding everyone accountable to their tasks will help build a sense of responsibility and pride.
• Schedule alone time with each child or family member. That’s because conversations flow more easily with fewer competing voices in the room. Also, put phones and devices away to make room for deeper conversations. Taking interest in what your child says builds trust and shows you’re invested in their well-being. This trust builds the likeliness they will turn to you when times get tough and they need support.
  

Technology’s Impact on Quality Family Time

Now let’s focus on the distractions—those things that pull your eyes and attention away from the road, endangering everyone in the car with you. Or with family, these distractors steal your presence and pull your attention away from your loved ones, possibly harming relationships.

Most of today’s distractions involve technology: phones, laptops, TVs, etc. The technology is useful and entertaining, but these devices can have major downsides.

Screen time steals your attention, taking you out of the conversation or activity at hand. Let’s say you only pull out your phone to check it quickly, but do so repeatedly. For those few moments, you miss major aspects of active listening mentioned above: eye contact and body language.

It’s also important to understand how constant technology use can affect the user. There’s plenty of research on the topic.

One study examined a large, random sample of data (over 40,000 respondents) representing how young children and adolescents (ages 2-17) interact with screens. They also looked at the resulting effects of technology on the respondents’ psychological well-being. Screens included cell phones, computers, gaming systems, and others.

Researchers found one hour of use per day was not problematic. In fact, an hour a day seemed to be a “sweet spot.” Those who used screens for about an hour each day experienced the same measure of well-being as those who didn’t use screens. In other words, minimal use barely constitutes a major distraction. Instead, light screen usage can be likened to the necessary adjustments needed to make a car ride more enjoyable—a quick adjustment of the AC or the radio volume.

The drop-off in psychological well-being only occurred after the one-hour mark was passed. With more than an hour of use per day, respondents reported feeling less curious, more distracted, and less emotionally stable. They also reported having a hard time making new friends.

In those 14-17 years old, specifically, heavy screen users (seven-plus hours per day vs. one hour per day) were more than twice as likely to have been diagnosed with depression or anxiety in the previous year. Back in the car, this type of prolonged distraction would result in a white-knuckle ride or even a car wreck.

Now consider these adolescents in the context of their families. If the teens are battling technology-induced anxiety and depression, their ability to fully show up and be present for quality family time is impaired, too. And if their family members are also turning to their screens, the support system the teens need isn’t accessible when they need it most.

Adults’ usage should also be put under the microscope. As journalist Erika Christakis puts it, “More than screen-obsessed young children, we should be concerned about tuned-out parents.” Over the years, parents have increased the amount of time they spend with their kids. However, as you learned before, that time is not necessarily quality time.

Linda Stone is a researcher who coined the term “continuous partial attention” (or CPA). It’s an appropriate descriptor of technology’s effect on the attention of both parents and children. Stone says operating in this way allows individuals to always be “on”—always available and accessible.

While this can be good in some circumstances (being alert and aware), it can also be detrimental. If you’re always “on,” you can experience high amounts of stress and anxiety. This can lead to feeling overwhelmed and overstimulated. And being in that state can make it difficult to connect meaningfully with your family and loved ones.

So, what can undo the harmful effects of unlimited screen time? David Rock, author of “Your Brain at Work,” suggests taking a break from technology—completely disconnecting. He argues that going offline can help improve your concentration. One study found that constantly checking devices (to monitor emails, social media feeds, and text messages) is associated with elevated stress levels. Taking a break from your devices and disconnecting may help lower your stress levels. And when you’re less stressed, you’re more likely to pursue and enjoy quality family time.

Finding Family and Overall Well-Being

So why does all of this matter? Research shows familial relationships are extremely influential to an individual family member’s well-being across their lifespan. This goes in both directions. If the family environment is toxic, family members’ well-being is negatively impacted. Conversely, if the family ties are strong and supportive, then each person will experience a boost in their well-being.

This is largely because family is key to social health and provides resources for each of its members. Family or close friends act as a wellness hub. They can offer emotional support, lend physical assistance if needed, or provide referrals to other caregivers. It may also come in the form of support through life’s stressors or encouragement to engage in healthier behaviors. Not having access to a family network can minimize the number of resources available to you.

Imagine the driving metaphor again. You’re back in the car and you want to make it to your destination safely. The best way to do this is to buckle up and limit distractions. You can equate positive family relationships to the safety belt: it can ensure you maintain your health (social, emotional, and physical). And limiting distractions—screen time and other technology—allows you to focus on the road ahead: pursuing quality family time to sustain each of your family members day-to-day.

About the Author

Jenna Templeton is a health educator and freelance science writer living in Salt Lake City, Utah. After receiving a bachelor of science degree in chemistry from Virginia Tech, Jenna spent five years as a research scientist in the nutritional industry. This work fueled her interest in personal wellness, leading her to pursue a graduate degree in Health Promotion & Education from the University of Utah. Outside of work, Jenna enjoys live music, gardening, all things food, and playing in the Wasatch mountains.

The bad news: Your relationship with time is more than likely toxic.

You’re overscheduled, stretched too thin, and find it difficult to focus on the present moment. You probably respond with, “busy,” when people ask how you’re doing. The worst part? You don’t feel like you have the power to take control of your time.

Whether you joined voluntarily or not, you’re a card-carrying member of the cult of busyness—the ever-growing group of people whose anxiety is rising because they don’t feel like they have enough time to get everything done. You’re among the hordes of multitaskers who scramble to squeeze the most out of every minute, rolling through life as a ball of stress, only to collapse into an exhausted heap at the end of every day.

How Busyness Took Over and Why it Keeps Getting Worse

It’s not your fault. You weren’t born to be a slave to your schedule. You just got swept up in an unhealthy cultural trend.

But how did so many people become obsessed with time and productivity?

When the world was filled with agrarian (or farming) societies, the passing of time was indicated by the sun and the seasons. Leisure time was a marker of wealth. But with the rise of the Industrial Revolution, the measurement of time became inextricably connected with productivity. Time was money. And the more a person worked, the more valuable he or she was perceived as being.

The technological era has again reshaped people’s relationship with time, creating a driving need to optimize as much of your life as possible. There are the same 24 hours to work with in every day as our agrarian and industrial ancestors had. So, society had to get smart about maximizing people’s skill sets to accomplish more moment-to-moment. With productivity reigning supreme, moments of leisure, rest, and relaxation are often looked at as wasteful or lost opportunities to accumulate wealth.

The result? Many people are held captive by their schedules. You might feel compelled to be seen as productive and, by extension, valuable. Put simply, your lack of time has become a primary marker of your worth. Signaling to others how busy you are implies you’re highly in-demand.

With most people having a digital device at their fingertips around the clock, it’s easy to feel like (and perpetuate the feeling) that everyone else is being productive around the clock. So, you need to compete. Ever had a coworker send emails at midnight? Do you receive group texts from your friends at 5 a.m.? Previous rules of decorum around personal time have been obliterated by both a compulsive need to be seen as hard workers and the variety of ways to communicate instantaneously.

Scientific Evidence for the Cult of Busyness

When someone messages you at odd hours, it triggers a feeling that you need to respond—out of good manners and to show that you, too, are available and productive around the clock. When you’re stuck in a cycle of responding to various stimuli, you don’t feel in control of your time. It’s dictated by others.

Experts studying the evolving relationship with time refer to this feeling as “time poverty.” But contrary to how time-starved many people feel, in reality, we have more free time than any previous generation.

“There is a distinction between objective time, which you can measure, and subjective time, which is experiential,” explains philosopher Nils F. Schott, the James M. Motley Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University.

When you’re preoccupied with the tug of war between what you want to do and what you should be doing, you’re missing opportunities and the ability to enjoy the moment. And you’re likely spending too much time on tasks you feel are urgent—regardless of their importance—and too little time on tasks that are important in the long run, but lack in-your-face urgency. For example, you might respond immediately to an email that pops into your inbox, but put off exercising for weeks (or months, or years).

Some studies show that busy people make better health choices (the thought being that having limited time forces better planning). But it’s no coincidence that as schedules become more hectic, the number of people who say they feel stressed and anxious has increased.

Feeling time-starved, like you’re always behind and will never catch up with life’s demands, can lead to stress, increased feelings of anxiety, and mental distress. Anxiousness can negatively impact sleep quality, which leads to poor planning and decision-making. Thus the cycle continues.

Reclaim Your Time with These 5 Tips

Finally, it’s time for some good news: Experts say there are ways to reverse the harmful effects of time poverty.

Simply put: do less.

Yes, that’s easier said than done because it requires understanding and protecting your priorities. Time is a precious resource, one worth fighting for. Recognizing that you have the power to control how you spend your time is the first step to reclaiming it.

Here are five practical tips to escape the cult of busyness:

1. Track your time. It may seem counterintuitive to pay more attention to your time in order to free yourself of its suffocating restraints. But it’s only by knowing where you’re devoting your minutes and hours that you can begin to reclaim them. After listing all of your activities in a diary, you’ll likely find that you have more free time than you think you do. That big-picture look can also help you prioritize what’s important, so you can focus more time on that. Time tracking can also help you pinpoint the time-sucking activities you need to eliminate.
2. Stop multitasking. It’s bad for your brain in the short term—and possibly lowers your IQ in the long-term. You may feel like you’re accomplishing more, but studies show multitasking is less productive than devoting your focus to one task or project at a time. And it will negatively affect the quality of your work and could diminish your cognitive function to that of an 8-year-old. To kick the multitasking habit, look to the results from your time diary to identify the window of time you’re most productive. Schedule your most mentally challenging tasks for this period of time. Remind yourself that a majority of the time, what doesn’t get done today can wait until tomorrow.
3. Ditch the guilt. Give yourself permission to opt out of the rat race. Set boundaries for your time and don’t feel bad for enforcing them. Feeling like you’re failing as a parent because you aren’t spending enough time with your kids? It’s time to let yourself off the hook. Parents today spend more time with their children than parents did 40 years ago. Instead of feeling guilty about the time you aren’t spending with your family, focus on making the time you do spend with them as high-quality as possible. Leave work at the office as much as possible and use your paid vacation time to make memories. You’ll set a great example to your children of what it looks like to honor your priorities and live mindfully.
4. Choose the right kind of rest. It may be tempting after a hard week to spend the weekend on the couch binging your favorite shows. But your mind won’t register that passive activity as rest. Instead, choose a more mindful form of rejuvenation: read a book, take a walk, meditate, do yoga, practice hygge, call a friend or family member. As is typical with any form of self-care, however, if it’s not scheduled and prioritized, it can become the first thing cut when your schedule gets extra unruly. Remember to book time to refill your tank. It’s also a good idea to have the occasional “device detox,” where you put the phones, laptops, and tablets away and enjoy the company of others. The texts and emails will be there when you return.
5. Take baby steps. Choose one time-reclaiming activity to implement. Use your time-tracking journal to help you identify areas in your life that consistently encroach upon your personal time and start there by creating realistic boundaries. Maybe you’ll decide to turn email notifications off or not to check texts after 8 p.m. After you’ve successfully incorporated that habit into your daily routine, choose another area to tackle. Keep going until you feel like you control your time instead of the other way around.

The Time is Now

The tornado of tasks sweeping you up—and your anxiety about dealing with all of them right now—isn’t all your fault. You’ve been sucked into the cult of busyness like so many people today.

Unlike others, you now understand how people end up paralyzed by productivity, and how technology has accelerated the perception (and reality) of busyness. And you have time-management tips to help you reclaim your time.

Don’t wait to take control over your schedule. Step off the non-stop treadmill of emails and projects and other people’s needs. Your time is invaluable and finite. So, reclaim your time and wrestle back dominion over your days.