30 | www. Char l es tonPhys i c i ans . com | www.Hea l thL i nksChar l es ton . com LAUGHTER By the Numbers In 2011, the acronym LOL – laugh out loud – was recognized in the Oxford English Dictionary. Children laugh about 400 TIMES a day. Adults only laugh about 15 TIMES. About 15 MINUTES of laughter a day burns between 10 AND 40 CALORIES. In groups, women tend to LAUGH MORE than men. According to the 2022 Golden Book of World Records, the world record for the longest consistent laughter is 3 HOURS AND 47 MINUTES. health by increasing blood flow to the heart. Laughter also can immediately improve your mood by increasing the endorphins released by your brain. Long-term, it can decrease anxiety and depression and help regulate your body’s emotional response. “Even laughing for 30 seconds can make your body go ‘wow’ because you are releasing tension,” Gillen added. And we all know that laughter can be contagious. Just hearing someone laugh can make you start to chuckle – and your laughter will create more laughter. So what happens if you don’t laugh enough? It can negatively affect your immune system. “Studies have shown that people who don’t laugh have lower levels of oxytocin, a feel-good hormone. This is linked to stress, depression and anxiety, even cardiac stress and schizophrenia because your woes are absorbed into the body rather than being let go,” said Gillen. Indeed, there’s no question that laughter really is good medicine. But maybe laughter’s real superpower is simply that it’s fun. “In my 80 years, what makes me laugh is getting together with family or friends and recalling some of the silly things that happened in our past. To me, laughter is a kind of letting go. I think it is fun to laugh with others. And who doesn’t like fun?” shared Bob Connor of Meridian, Mississippi.
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