Laughter Really Might Be the Best Medicine

Laughter!

I came home from my holiday with sore cheeks and an aching stomach, not from too much food or too many cocktails, but from laughing.  For two weeks, I laughed, properly laughed, the kind where you can't get your words out, your stomach hurts and every time you think you've finally pulled yourself together, someone looks at you and you start all over again.  Somewhere in the middle of all that laughter, I realised something, I hadn't realised how much I'd needed it.

It’s not that the joy was missing from my life before I went away, I love what I do, have wonderful people around me, and so much that I'm grateful for.  I have a life that, for the most part, feels very much like mine, but there was something about laughing that much, being completely present and having absolutely nowhere else I needed to be that reminded me just how important joy in life is.

I’m not talking about the big, social media worthy picture perfect joy but the everyday kind and reflecting on this really got me thinking about how easily we can accidentally squeeze it out of our lives.  When did fun become something, we had to schedule?

As adults, our lives can become incredibly functional, we work, we manage homes, we look after people, spend our days answering emails, making decisions and exercising because it's good for us! We plan meals, manage diaries and work our way through never-ending lists, we become very good at doing life and what it throws our way.

How often though do we stop and ask ourselves whether we're actually enjoying it?  We tend to treat joy as the reward at the end of a task, “once I've finished this project” or “at the weekend”.  We promise ourselves some joy as a prize in a future tense almost as encouragement to get through our daily lists; “once things calm down”, on our next night out or when we go on holiday.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with planning things to look forward to, I love a holiday as much as anyone, but there's a big difference between going on holiday to enjoy your life and needing a holiday to escape from it.  If all of your joy exists somewhere in the future, what does that say about the life you're living today?

Laughter really does change something, we've said laughter is the best medicine for generations, but there is actually some interesting science behind it.  A 2023 review looked at eight studies involving 315 adults and found that laughter interventions were associated with a 31.9% greater reduction in cortisol, one of the hormones involved in our stress response, compared with control conditions.

Even a single session of laughter was associated with a significant reduction.  So that feeling when you've laughed until your shoulders drop, your body relaxes and for a moment you've completely forgotten what you were worrying about?  There is something physiological happening too.

Of course, laughing doesn't remove the things causing stress in our lives. It doesn't fix a difficult relationship, reduce our workload or make a challenging decision for us.

What it does do though is interrupt the constant seriousness, giving our minds and bodies a moment where everything isn't a problem to solve and sometimes, we need far more of those moments than we realise.

Joy connects us, think about some of the times you've laughed the hardest, chances are, you weren't alone.  There is something incredibly connecting about shared laughter. The ridiculous stories that become funnier every time they're told. The private jokes nobody else understands. The moment one person starts laughing and suddenly the whole table has gone.

Those moments create belonging and belonging is important when we start to look at the wider life wellness balance.  We spend so much time talking about health in terms of what we eat, how much we exercise and how well we sleep, all incredibly important things, but human connection matters too.  Joy doesn't always need to be productive, sometimes sitting around a table laughing with people you love is doing something very worthwhile indeed.

There's another reason I think we underestimate joy, particularly in our increasingly busy lives, as it changes how we think, positive emotions have been shown to broaden our thinking.  Psychologist Barbara Fredrickson's research into positive emotions suggests that emotions such as joy, interest and contentment can widen the range of thoughts and actions available to us. Joy in particular encourages play, exploration and creativity.

In other words, when our brains aren't constantly occupied with surviving, worrying, analysing and solving, we have more room to imagine, be curious, play with ideas, see possibilities and create.  That's important personally, but it's incredibly important professionally too.  We sometimes behave as though the route to better performance is simply more effort, more hours and more focus, yet some of our best thinking happens when we stop trying quite so hard. Doing something purely because we enjoy it, walking, a coffee with a friend or during a ridiculous conversation.  Sometimes giving your brain somewhere else to go is exactly what allows it to come back with something new.

One thing I've become increasingly conscious of is that we can't always wait for joy to spontaneously find us, life gets busy, but planned joy counts too.  If we're not careful, the things that are urgent will consume all the space previously occupied by the things that make us feel alive.  So sometimes joy needs to be planned; book the dinner, arrange the walk, buy the concert tickets, phone that friend, put the weekend plans in the diary, take that class you've always fancied trying, or do a completely pointless thing that makes you laugh.

Sometimes, leaving enough space in your life for the unplanned moments can be so important, not every hour needs to be accounted for, nor every activity needs to achieve something. You're allowed to enjoy your life while you're building it without every experience needing to improve you.

Joy isn't the whole story though and this is where I think the conversation becomes bigger than simply have more fun.  A fulfilling life can't be built on pleasure alone; we also need purpose.  Purpose doesn't necessarily mean changing the world or discovering one enormous calling. It can simply mean knowing what matters to you, having direction and feeling that how you spend your time means something.

The relationship between purpose and stress is a fascinating one.  A large study involving more than 108,000 people found that people with a greater sense of purpose also reported lower levels of stress. Importantly, that relationship was found across different ages, sexes, ethnicities and educational backgrounds.

Sadly, this doesn't mean purpose magically removes stress, what it means is that having something meaningful to move towards may change how we experience the pressures that inevitably comes with life.  There's a difference between being exhausted because you're building something that matters to you and being exhausted because you're spending everyday living according to expectations you never consciously chose.

The question I've been thinking about since coming home, what am I actually building?  We spend enormous amounts of time planning our careers, businesses, finances, homes and holidays.  Conversely how much time do we spend intentionally designing how we want our lives to feel? 

Not every day is going to be joyful, there will always be difficult periods, whether that’s stressful weeks, losses, disappointments, responsibilities or just days when absolutely nothing goes according to plan.  Creating a life, you love isn't about eliminating any of that, it's about making sure those things aren't the only things, that alongside responsibility, there is fun! 

We balance ambition and connection, achievement and meaning, planning and spontaneity taking their own space.  We need joy alongside purpose and maybe that's one of the questions we should ask ourselves more often:  Am I building a life I need to regularly escape from, or one I genuinely want to wake up to?

My holiday this year reminded me that I want both; I want purpose, I want to keep growing, learning, working towards things and making a difference, BUT I also want to laugh until my stomach hurts, and I'm not prepared to wait until the next holiday to do it.