Advertisement
Can laughing make you healthier? What to know
21st September, 2026 12:14 AM
There was that time I was struggling to carry a mattress over my head and walked into a wall. There was also a view of me trimming my nose hairs, somehow captured as I was getting ready for work.
Throughout their teenage years, my sons secretly filmed me in my worst moments, and now and again they’ll treat me to an impromptu screening of them all.
Dad’s “greatest hits” are so bad they’re good, and we find ourselves howling with laughter every time my kids bring them out again. By now, I usually know what’s coming, but somehow, the highlight reel gets funnier every time.
Ironically, perhaps the best thing we can do is laugh. A good chuckle won’t fix all the problems, but it can, at least, make you feel better about your place in the world.
I’m one of those people who laughs often and hard; I’m lucky enough to have some irreverent work colleagues who regularly tickle my funny bone and a wife and two kids who seem to find humour in pretty much everything.
I’d never considered whether laughing might have any beneficial health properties until recently. But every time I leave a comedy club with my cheeks hurting, I know I can’t wait for the next show.
The Bible backs me up
“A cheerful heart is good medicine,” Proverbs 17:22 says, and if you’re visiting the birthplace of the 19th century English poet Lord Byron, you’ll see a plaque featuring a famous quote sometimes attributed to him: “Always laugh when you can. It is a cheap medicine.”
Can laughter make you healthier?
It’s often said that laughter is the best medicine — and there may be a lot more truth to that than many have realised. A good belly laugh isn’t just an emotional experience; it’s a physical one, too.
Deep laughter opens up the chest, boosts oxygen intake and stimulates circulation. What’s more, cracking up triggers chemical changes that prompt the inner lining of blood vessels to dilate and improve blood flow.
“You’re pumping blood, your lungs are expanded,” the American comedian Craig Shoemaker told me before a recent Atlanta show. “Everything happens when you’re laughing. It’s as good as a workout!”
Laughter has some science behind it
What can a good laugh do for you? Through a systematic review of eight small, short-term studies conducted between 1989 and 2021, endocrinologist Dr Caroline Kramer and her team identified that a good laugh is linked to a roughly 30% reduction in the stress hormone cortisol.
Kramer, an associate professor at the University of Toronto and a clinician scientist at Mount Sinai’s Leadership Sinai Centre for Diabetes, told CNN that her team’s 2023 study into the impact of spontaneous laughter on stress response was unambiguous.
“Even 10 minutes of laughter can reduce cortisol significantly,” Kramer said. “Our results were of greater importance than I thought they would be.”
Laughter fuels resilience in the face of cancer
He told me the story of his friend, screenwriter Michael Goldberg, who was diagnosed with brain cancer around 2001 and given three months to live. Shoemaker threw himself into work with a cancer facility, trying to find ways for comedy to help Goldberg.
“If only concentrating on the misery of cancer protocols and methodologies, that’s a miserable experience and it doesn’t inspire people to keep going with their healing journey,” he said. “Michael lived 15 years past that prognosis. Wow.” Shoemaker gives some credit to Goldberg’s will to live and the joy he had in his life.
In the process of helping his friend, Shoemaker created a series of workshops and products to help many others.
“It’s for people so they can have a reset, a recharge, a reclamation, on the spot, for whatever they’re dealing with,” he explained. “You literally cannot be angry, depressed or have any other feelings except for bliss while you are laughing. Laughter has its own space.”
