Says the duo Faemino and Tired in the brochure of ¡Como en casa, no talking! that they would like people to laugh at least twenty-three times , and that when they leave the theater they would be better people and find the meaning of life . The first wish is fulfilled in abundance. Many begin to laugh as soon as the comedians step on the stage. Others, on the other hand, do not like the show at all. Or they even have a hard time, as happens to a woman who does not stop looking at her mobile every moment, waiting for the torture to end at once. Why is something fun for some not fun for others? “I think humor is a way of looking at life and a defense mechanism. And it is not clear where it lies ”, says Javier Cansado. And he adds: “I always say that my children are funny people, but not humorous. I can teach you to taste a wine, but I cannot teach you a sense of humor ”. Laughter is a behavior widely analyzed by the scientific community for decades. Humor, on the other hand, reveals much more about how we think, feel and relate to others. It is a state of mind, and therefore difficult to measure.
Dance of neurons
Thanks to modern techniquesneuroimagen, we know thathumor originates from an area called the bug-detection hub. It is located almostin the center of the brain, just above the corpus callosum that connects the left and right hemispheres. From this position, he can supervise the rest of the regions, each of which is specialized in an activity, such as vision or language. When we are told a joke, the sound waves from the words travel as electrical impulses to the brain: “How does an elephant hide in a cherry tree?” Theleft hemisphere begins to sort the information while trying to guess the logical endingof history. On the other hand, a small area is activated in the right hemisphere that allows us to imagine the narration from an absurd perspective. We also need the areas involved in language processing andshort term memory. Then comes the resolution of the joke: “he paints his nails red.” That incongruity, that unexpected ending breaks our expectations. The errors center is in charge of synchronizing the logical and illogical of the narrative, according to Natalia López Moratalla, professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Navarra. But it is one thing for a joke to surprise us and quite another to find it funny. By detecting the error, the brain gets a reward through the release of dopamine, known as the hormone of happiness. That’s when the laughter is triggered. “The sense of humor requires an agile and flexible mind, since the processes of understanding the joke, finding it funny and laughing are synchronized very quickly,” says the expert.
Humor, therefore, activates positive feelings, but does not necessarily eliminate negative ones. In fact, in tragic circumstances, like a funeral, we are sometimes unable to suppress laughter . Although it may seem rude, it is only a way of dealing with conflicting emotions. It can even help us connect with others in times of stress. Researcher Lisa Rosenberg, from Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, has studied how humor helps in jobs that require quick and accurate decision making. In one of his studies, he asked seventy professionals from the emergency department at a hospital to describe how they loosen the tension in their day-to-day lives. And making ghoulish tricks about patients proved to be very helpful. “The act of joking gives us a mental break and increases our objectivity in a situation of overwhelming stress,” concluded Rosenberg in his study. Although some people think that black humor brings out the worst in human behavior, we love to give tacky thanks. You just have to see how little it takes us to invent tricks when a collective tragedy occurs.
Jokes about 9/11?
Scott Weems, author of the bookHa The science of when we laugh and why, reflects on the jokes that circulated on account of the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York: “The really important aspect is that they reveal our true feelings about the incident. There is anger, of course, but also frustration and, sporadically, irreverence. […] They reflected what people wanted to say: ‘Don’t tell me how I have to feel.I can recognize a tragedy when I see it without being reminded around the clock on the news‘”. Humor and its most common manifestation, laughter, are not only useful aspsychological defense mechanism, but also provide benefits to our body. First of all, because cutting out is an aerobic exercise:a hundred laughs is roughly equivalent to ten to fifteen minutes on a stationary bike. It is also healthy because “it produces an acceleration of the heart rate and a supply of oxygen to the brain,” says Moratalla. “People with humor – he continues – have a healthier immune system, suffer 40% fewer heart attacks and live four and a half years longer on average.” The basis for this theory is found in studies such as the one carried out a few years ago at the University of Maryland, in the US Doctors recommend exercising regularly, because it dilates the blood vessels, which in turn improves blood pressure. irrigation of the body and makes circulation more stable. In other words, the same effect that laughter causes. To prove this, the researchers had twenty volunteers witness the opening scene of a stressful movie likeSaving Private Ryanand a silly comedy likeWhat a couple of idiots.
After seeing the first one, fourteen people experienced a reduction in the caliber of their arteries . Instead, after watching the gags in What a Pair of Idiots , they all showed an improvement in blood flow of more than 20%. That’s why many scientists recommend laughing for a minimum of fifteen minutes a day . This activity also appears to serve as a pain reliever, according to a team from Allegheny College in Pennsylvania. Scientists found that suffering from an electric shock is less if a comedy has been seen before. Moreover, according to another work led by Professor Lee Berk, from Loma Linda University, California, the calming effect is visible just by announcing to study subjects that they are going to enjoy a comic video. The explanation is that laughter stimulates the production of endorphins , considered as a kind of natural morphine in the body.
“It is clear that both laughter and humor do not heal by themselves, but they are beneficial for diseases in which the pain threshold is on the ground , such as fibromyalgia, and also in mood disorders or anxious and depressive pictures”, says Dr. Manuel Arias Gómez, coordinator of the Humanities Group of the Spanish Neurology Society (SEN). For this reason, the so-called laughter therapy is used as a complement to some treatments. And more and more hospitals have volunteers, usually artists – clowns, magicians, storytellers, musicians, actors … – who warm the cold healthcare environment. The Sonrisa Doctors of the Theodora Foundation, the Pallapupas, the Clowns without Borders and the professionals of Sonrisa Médica are just some examples of this trend in our country.
Begoña Carbelo, doctor in Psychology, has spent years investigating the relationship between health and humor and its use by health personnel. “I think the possibility of helping patients through emotional states that allow them to divert attention from their situation is still not appreciated.” This professor at the San Rafael-Nebrija University Center for Health Sciences, in Madrid, defends that projects of this type are becoming more and more necessary, and demands that they be given the entity they deserve. “They have been proven to work: patients are encouraged and progress more favorably. And not only in the children’s sphere: it also works with adults and the elderly ”. And it is that humor is, along with sports, good nutrition and healthy lifestyle habits, the best medicine there is.
