Laughter makes you happy.

A geeky fact is that laughter, I mean real laughter where the belly moves and down and we lose control and chuckle. Yes that laughter is called guffaw, well it’s the key to regulating the Serotonin in your body. 

If you don’t have time to read on then here’s the shortened version.

If you want to be happier, you need to release more Serotonin into your body and if you want to release more Serotonin into your body then laugh, especially at you’re mistakes, your quirks and nuances. 

Laughter really does make us happy.

Depressed people can’t laugh at themselves, so they don’t. Happy people can at themselves and often do. 

What happens inside the body is somewhat remarkable because the act of laughter itself regulates a  neurotransmitter called serotonin when we guffaw. A belly laugh starts in the gut and 90% of serotonin is stored in the gut. 

When we laugh at jokes or things we find funny, then a beautiful process takes over to gradually release our stress levels.

Stress is caused by an incongruence across our cells but when serotonin gets released into the blood stream the cells in our body temporarily all sing off the same sheet, they harmonise. This is the wonderful thing about serotonin. It’s sero (blood) tonin (toner).

The average person will chat to friends at a syllable rate around 7.5Hzs but measurements of the speed of laughter and we discover we all slow down a little. The average laughter rate being bang in the middle of Theta Brainwaves and sits around 5.5Hz.

The world over, all humans can recognise when someone else is laughing, it’s a commonality that’s a ‘common sense’ thing to do.

Serotonin literally tones the blood which brings all the cells of the body to a point of harmony, it’s no wonder it’s referred to as the ‘happy hormone’. While at the same time the brain gets flooded with a blast of frequencies which break apart the stress pattern that occurred before the punchline was told.

We don’t laugh because we’re happy, we’re happy because we laugh – William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910)

If you are still confused what guffaw is, then you may enjoy watching this… Skype Laughter Chain

… enjoy!