Is Laughter a Gift From God?
Lindsay R. Neumann
My paper is on the science of laughter. First, I explain the aspects of humor and
tell what makes people laugh. Then I
discuss about the benefits of laugher.
Finally I explain why laughter is a gift from God.
“From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere.” – Dr. Seuss. How true that statement is. Everywhere we look in our culture we see signs of humor, and ultimately laughter. The basis of all TV sitcoms is to make people laugh. But how do they do that? What makes people laugh? It is obvious that people enjoy laughter, but why? What makes laughter good for us? Can laughter ever be harmful? These are simple questions, but they have complicated answers. Except for one question, which is a difficult question that requires a simple answer: Is Laughter a gift from God?
You cannot talk about laughter
without discussing humor as well. Humor
comes from the Latin word humor, meaning to flow like water. That defines humor fairly well, once it starts
flowing it can be hard to stop. Humor
can be found anywhere and everywhere.
When people do normal things at odd times, its humor, when people do odd
things at normal times it’s also humor.
Actually discovering what humor is, is a different story.
James Sherman, author of The Magic of Laughter in Caregiving,
defines the essence of humor as the acronym HEARTS. This stands for Hostility, Exaggeration,
Aggression, Realism, and Tension. Humor
also occurs when you recognize nonsense in situations. Many times the best humor is found in the
tragic reality of human experience.
Everyone has a sense of humor, some people just use theirs more. A sense of humor is both of the mind and
emotions. Laughter and a sense of humor are not the same thing, although it is hard to find one with
out the other. Groucho
Marx, a famous comedian only laughed once, as far as anyone knows. To have a good sense of humor you need to be
able to see humor in your everyday life.
As Elsa Maxwell says “Laugh at yourself, before anyone
else can.”
Now we come to laughter. Laughter is very common in our culture. Everywhere you look, you find people laughing
or trying to laugh. As well as laughter
being common in our culture it is also accepted. That may not seem like a big deal, but in
Asian and Middle Eastern cultures women cannot laugh in public. If you think about it laughter looks
strange. Sometimes people don’t always
understand why others are laughing. That
could be because you don’t need a reason to laugh. You also don’t need to be happy to laugh.
The real question is why do people
laugh? In my own research I tried to
find the answer to this question. I sent
out 100 surveys to people ages 8 through adulthood. On this survey I asked people what makes them
laugh and why. I thought that most everyone
would respond by saying “something funny”.
So I also included the question: What makes something funny? I have only received about 25% of my surveys
back, but still the results were very surprising. No one said simply that something funny makes
him or her laugh. They all expounded on
that. People stated that funny jokes,
poems, and stories, strange people, events or things, cartoons, television
shows, and radio programs made then laugh.
Overwhelmingly many of the women stated that people or younger children
make them laugh. While the men said that
jokes or something stupid would make them laugh.
As for what
makes something funny the answers were much different. There were hardly any similarities between
how the people defined something as funny.
One person said that if something makes her laugh its funny. Many of the comments did include things like
if something was unusual or out of the ordinary it was funny. Many made it clear that things that were
offensive or crude were not funny. It
is hard to define if something is funny because different things make different
people laugh.
I found it
very interesting that a majority of the people stated on the surveys that they
laugh at TV. Many people also said that
the last time that they really laughed was during a television show. TV, many times, is violent. Why is someone getting hurt funny? This question can be difficult to
answer. Maybe it is because when a
cartoon character blows up or is smashed by a giant rock it is obviously not real. We know this since the character returns in
the next scene as good as new. Or when
comedians fall or slip on something we laugh.
Maybe that is because we know, or assume that they were just
kidding. Laughter is a very interesting
thing.
We have all heard the sayings that
“laughter is good for you,” and “laughter is the best medicine.” This is very true. Patty Wooten in her book Compassionate
Laughter: Jest for Your Health says,
“Laughter is a smile that engages the entire body.” It is a total body workout heart, lungs,
facial, shoulder, and stomach muscles. Laughter has positive benefits on mental
functions. It helps soothe your
nerves. Laughter literally massages your
internal organs. After a good hard laugh
your heart rate drops and your muscles relax.
Laughter exercises your lungs.
This “best medicine” boosts your immune system and helps your body fight
infections. Laughter stimulates your
circulatory system and reduces your blood pressure. This leads to helping nutrients and oxygen move
through the body. Laughter has been
known to prevent some heart attacks. It
can also prevent ulcers. Laughter aids
in digestion and gives your diaphragm, the main muscle used in breathing, a
really good work out.
Have you ever noticed how wonderfully relaxed
you feel after a good laugh? All of the
people in my survey said that they enjoyed laughing because it made them feel
good, except for an eight year old boy who doesn’t like laughing because he
gets the hiccups. The “feeling good” is
because of two reasons. First, laughter
greatly reduces muscle tension. Secondly
it distracts you and relieves you from pain.
This is because while laughing the body releases endorphins, which are
the body’s natural painkillers. No
wonder people feel so good. Laughter
gives you a deep relaxation.
As you can
see, there are many physical benefits of laughter. But laughter has an emotional side as
well. Victor Borge
said, “Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.” Laughter connects people. It is music to the soul.1 Laughter
can help release anger and it counteracts stress. Laughter is the hole that lets the sawdust
out of a stuffed shirt2.
Laughter calms tempers. It can
help us keep our balance when life throws us a curve ball 3. Laughter can heal. It helps people cope with grief. It can wake you up and calm you down. Laughter is as good for a person’s emotional
well being as it is for their physical well being. Leszczynski Stanis, an 18th century
Polish King said it best when he said, “Good humor is the health of the soul,
sadness is its poison.”
“Where
there is laughter… there’s hope.” - Comic Relief 1990. Laughter is very important in coping with
tragedy. It lightens the mood and lifts
your spirits. Laughter can be a
psychological strategy that gives us relief from pain, suffering and tragedy
(4). Roger Rabbit said, “Sometimes a
laugh is the only weapon we have.” The
key to using laughter as a weapon is to realize that things like death and
illness are not funny, but the events that surround then are. A good friend of my family was recently
battling cancer. When I asked her if
laughter helped her at all she answered, “It certainly did.” She told me that she looked for every
opportunity to watch a funny movie, or read a funny book. She recalls that she and her daughter would
some times get the “giggles” and would be unable to stop laughing. “Laughter makes you feel good and really
relaxes you,” she said.
Laughter is
helpful to the human body in many ways, but it can also be hurtful in many
ways. Joking is not always funny. For example, the main purpose of an ethnic
joke is often to gather support of a prejudice viewpoint through laughter. It is abusing laughter. Teasing is very similar to that. When one person teases another, the people
who witness this will laugh at the teasing, ultimately hurting the one who is
being teased. Laughter is also used when
people are mocking someone. Tickling is
another form of laughter abuse. Many
times when a person tickles another, it is to get the person to laugh. Think about this when you are being
tickled. Do you have a choice to laugh
or not? Not really. Also, when a person is being tickled all
physical reactions are those of a person being attacked. I am not saying that tickling is a bad thing,
but just be careful when you use it.
In Genisis 18, the Bible tells the story of Abraham and Sarah
finding out that they are going to have a son, even in their old age (100 and
90 years respectively). While God was
telling this to Abraham, Sarah overheard from the tent. When she did she laughed in disbelief. But sure enough, one year later Sarah gave
birth to a son, Isaac, whose name means: he laughs. Since the beginning of time people have
laughed. It is a natural thing. God created laughter when he created us. In my surveys I asked the question: Do you
believe that laughter is a gift from God?
Overwhelmingly the answer was yes.
Many said so because laughter makes us happy,
and God wants His children to be happy.
One student answered the question, “Do you enjoy laughing?” by saying, “Yes,
because laughing is a gift from God.”
When he got to the question “Is laughter a gift from God.” he responded
by putting “I JUST SAID THAT!!!” An
adult concluded everyone’s thoughts nicely by saying “Yes, He [God] starts with
the very first joke. Genisis 1:1 ‘In the Big inning.’”
Many people
used scripture in their responses. A
very common one was Proverbs 17:22 “A merry heart is good medicine.” One woman said that to her a merry heart
laughs easily. Nehemiah
Although a huge majority of people agreed that laughter is a gift from God one man thought differently. He said that laughter is different from joy. Joy is one of the fruits of the spirit. In I Corinthians the “gifts” of the spirit are listed and laughter is not listed. He went on to say that laughter could occur when non-believers are drunk, and that the end of Galatians states that drunkenness is a “work of the flesh”.
The conclusions I draw from all of this are, that laughter was created good like everything else. People may laugh for many different reasons, but all laughter benefits a person’s emotional and physical well being. Laughter is good for us. But when sin entered the world, laughter fell like the rest of creation. It can now be used in sinful or “fleshy” ways. God’s intentions were good when he created man with a sense of humor and the ability to laugh. Laughter is a Gift from God. Genisis 1:10, 31, “And God saw that it was good…and indeed it was very good.
Notes
1 James
Sherman, The Magic of Laughter in Caregiving (1995) book cover
2
4 Patty
Wooten, Compassionate Laughter: Jest for Your Health (Salt Lake
City: Cummune-a-Key
Publishing, 1996) 14
5 Annette Goodheart, Laughter Therapy (Santa Barbara: Less Stress Press, 1994) 39
6 Goodheart 46
Works Cited
Dana,
Bill and Dr. Laurence Peter. The Laughter Prescription.
Doyle, Diane. Interview.
Goodheart, Annette. Laughter Therapy.
Holy Bible, New
International Version
Jasheway, Leigh Anne. Don’t Get
Mad Get Funny.
Klein,
Allen. The Courage
to Laugh.
Kohlenberger,
John R. The NRSV
Concordance Unabridged.
Sherman,
James. The Magic of
Laughter in Cargiving. 1995
Wooten,
Patty R. N. Compassionate
Laughter: Jest for Your Health.