Laughing

Posted by Jada Terrell in Science And Society - Best - Y on

​Science: When we laugh, multiple parts of our brain are triggered. These regions include- limbic system, amygdala and hippocampus, thalamus, hypothalamus, and frontal lobe. These each have to do with behavior, emotion, social connection, and or sound. The main part is the limbic system. There haven't been any research done to identify what exactly triggers us to laugh, just the regions of the brain. I learned that we laugh when our brain tells us to, not exactly when we want to. The study of laughter is called the "gelotology". Laughing can be an exercise. For every 15 minutes of laughter, you can burn up to 40 calories. 

Society: People always say that laughter is the best medicine. There are reasons why, because it improves you physically, socially, and mentally. Physically, when you laugh, your muscles relax. Like stated above, you can burn calories with laughter. It prevents from heart attacks and other cardio issues because it helps your heart pump a lot of blood and it helps your immune system as well by increasing immune cells. It also increases infection-fighting antibodies. Socially, you build relationships over laughter. With all the different languages in the world, laughter is common amongst us all. It is also very contagious, that is proven, so when you are having a good laugh and are in a good mood, that helps improve someone else's mood around you. Mentally, laughter decreases stress hormones, so you feel at ease. It eases your anxiety and fear. 


Self: The reason that I chose to do laughter for this project is because I love laughing. It's one of my favorite things to do because it makes me feel really good. I make myself laugh a lot too, I really crack myself up at the things I think of in my head, and or say out loud. I like to make other people laugh too. I just wanted to look into the science behind laughter to see what I could learn. I didn't learn much scientifically about what triggers me to laugh in my brain, I just know the regions affected when I am about to laugh, and while I'm laughing, which was also interesting to find out. 

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