Laughing out loud in the company of friends, diminishes the pain, due to opiate molecules that are “flooding” the brain, say the authors of a British study that was published Wednesday.
Researchers have tested in the laboratory the pain response of volunteers who watched clips from comedy series “Mr. Bean” and “Friends” or non-humorous shows about golf and animal life.
The pain was caused to volunteers by application on the skin of a container full of ice and a tourniquet tighten to the limit.
Another test was performed during the Edinburgh Festival by volunteers watching either a comedy or a drama play. Immediately after the show, in order to check if laughter eases the sensation of pain, the volunteers were invited to support a wall with knees bent, as if sitting on an invisible chair.
A quarter of an hour of laughing out loud is enough to increase by about 10% the tolerance to pain, the authors of this study announced. In contrast, watching non-humorous shows or dramas have no effect against pain.
However, the study made a clear separation between laughing out loud, the only one which has this effect against pain, and the polite laughter.
As laughing out loud rarely occurs when you are alone, to be in a group of friends seems a decisive condition for triggering this type of laughter that releases endorphins in the brain.
These molecules with the role of chemical messengers between neurons can also alleviate physical pain signals or stress. Endorphins are produced during exercise, which is why people have a pleasant feeling when they run or practice sports.
Laughing out loud involves involuntary and repeated muscle exercise, during which people are expiring air without breathing. Exhaustion caused by this sudden effort leads to the production of endorphins, according to the study.
Apes are also able to laugh, but, unlike humans, they inspire as much air as they expired during laughter.
The authors of the study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, believe that their experiments will help scientists better understand the physiological and social mechanisms of laughter and its origin.