Source: www.helpguides.org.
Laughter has a powerful effect on your health and well-being. A good laugh relieves tension and stress, elevates mood, enhances creativity and problem-solving ability, and provides a quick energy boost. Laughter brings people together.
Shared laughter is one of the most effective tools for keeping relationships exciting, fresh, and vital.
Humour and playful communication strengthens our relationships by making us feel good and fostering emotional connection.
When we laugh with one another, a positive bond is created. This bond acts as a strong buffer against stress, disagreements, and disappointment.
Humour, laughter and play enrich our interactions and give our relationships that extra zing that keeps them exciting, light, and joyful. Shared pleasure creates a sense of connection that helps define solid, lasting relationships
Playful communication helps you:
- Bridge differences. Using gentle humour often helps you broach sensitive subjects, resolve disagreements, and reframe problems.
- Feel relaxed and energized at the same time. Laughter relieves fatigue and relaxes your body, while also recharging your batteries and enabling you to accomplish more.
- Overcome problems and setbacks. A sense of humour is the key to resilience. It helps you take hardships in stride, weather disappointment, and bounce back from adversity and loss.
- Become more creative. Humour and playfulness loosen you up, energize your thinking and inspire creative problem solving.
Physical health benefits of laughter and humour
Laughter bolsters your physical health by:
- Decreasing stress hormones
- Improving the flow of oxygen to the brain
- Reducing physical pain
- Lowering blood pressure
- Strengthening the immune system
- Protecting the heart.
Mental health benefits of laughter and humour
The mental health benefits of laughter are tied to the physical benefits. When your body is relaxed and energized, you are better able to think and communicate clearly. This helps you keep your own emotions in check, relate in a positive way to others, and resolve conflict.
Laughter is a particularly powerful antidote to depression and anxiety. Having a sense of humour offsets depression and anxiety by:
- Releasing endorphins. When you laugh, your brain releases endorphins, powerful chemicals that boost mood and override sadness and negative thoughts.
- Putting things into perspective. Most situations are not as bleak as they appear to be when looked at from a playful and humorous point of view.
- Connecting us to others. Our mental health depends, to a large degree, on the quality of our relationships—and laughter binds people together.
Improving your playful communication skills
It’s never too late to develop and embrace your playful, humorous side. Self-consciousness and concern for how you look and sound to others is probably a big factor that’s limiting your playfulness.
You can reclaim your inborn playfulness by setting aside regular, quality playtime. The more you joke, play, and laugh—the easier it becomes.
Learn playfulness from the experts:
- Play with animals. Puppies, kittens, and most animals young and old are eager playmates.
- Play with babies and young children. The real authorities in human play are children, especially young children. Playing with children who know and trust you is a wonderful way to learn from the experts.
- Laughter is contagious and it primes our brain and readies us to join in on the fun.
As humour and play become an integrated part of your life, your creativity will flourish and new discoveries for playing with loved ones will occur to you daily.
Mutual laughter and play are an essential component of strong, healthy relationships. Make a conscious effort to incorporate more humour and play into your daily interactions. You can improve the quality of your love relationships as well as your connections with co-workers, family members, and friends.
