Anticipating Laughter

My friend Patrizia and I get together once a month, initially to speak Italian and to visit.  But as we’ve become better and better friends, we speak less and less Italian and more and more English.    Now it’s all English, a bit sad for me as I am trying to learn this beautiful new language.

But irrespective of the language we laugh endlessly.  We’ve developed a stream of running jokes about life, some in Italian, some in English.  So this is always something I look forward to.  A highlight of my month, for one reason, because I know I’ll be getting a lot of laughs.

Drs. Lee Berk and. Stanley Tan, pioneering researchers in the field of laughter therapy, did a series of studies on laughter and the immune system.  They found a significant link and got some interesting results.

If you laugh for a good chunk of time, as we do during a laughter session, it not only stimulates your immune system while you are laughing, but also for a good 24 hours after.

Even more interesting they found that simply anticipating that you’re going to be laughing starts activating your immune system.  One group of their subjects was told they were about to view an informational weather video.  Boring.  The other group was told they were about to view a comedy video.  Funny.  They tested them before, during and after and observed how this boost begins immediately after knowing what’s coming.

It’s good for your health to have some laughter to look forward to.  For my friend Patrizia and I, sometimes all we need to do is look at each other and the laughter begins.  Like Pavlov’s dogs, we know what’s coming…

Photo:  Stock.xchnge