A quick quiz — no prizes, it’s just for fun:
What human trait has been claimed to protect us from cancer, heart attacks, strokes, asthma, diabetes, pneumonia, bronchitis, hypertension, migraine headaches, arthritis pain, ulcers and infectious diseases from the common cold to Aids?1
Answer:
Humour.
The key words in the question above are ‘has been claimed to’. For years, humorists, comedians, doctors and, in short, a helluva lot of people, have touted the health benefits of humour and laughter. This is loosely called the ‘humour and health movement’. At its best, it’s a bit of fun. At its worst, it’s like the dodgy patent-medicine salesmen, hawking snake oil.
But is there any truth in this? Is ‘laughter the best medicine’, as Reader’s Digest would have us believe?
Let’s head to the hospital to find out…
In terms of immediate health benefits, there are a few we can say for certain:
When we experience humour, our brains releases:
dopamine, so making us feel happier
oxytocin, so making us feel more trusting
And lowers…
cortisol, so making us feel less stressed
…That’s all to the good.
In terms of longer term health benefits, a bit over a decade ago two academics looked into this. They studied 785 papers on the subject written from 1946 to 2013 — that would have taken a good afternoon or two — and came to the overall conclusion that humour leads to:
increased pain threshold
reduced cardiovascular tension
reduced risk of myocardial infarction
reduced blood glucose concentrate2
Again: good news. Humour is useful in terms of pain-reduction (as opposed to, say, immunity from infectious diseases)3.
…But there’s a but.
Cast your mind back to humankind’s earliest days, when we looked a bit like this fella:
Did we develop humour because it has a medical benefit? Well, no. Most thinkers in the field argue that we developed it for social reasons. Humour has a fundamental social benefit, showing our fitness — be it emotional, intellectual, linguistic, cognitive — to attract a mate and our resilience in the face of danger. The medical benefit of humour might be an added advantage, but it’s not regarded as the core one.
Another aspect to keep in mind that is humour comes in many different forms. One widely accepted form of humour, for example, is called superiority4 humour. Here’s an example of this in a sitcom, Cheers — the opening joke (up to the 12-second mark) is a masterpiece of this type of humour.
Why do we laugh? Because Lillith’s entire professional success, summarised in a slew of acronyms, mean absolutely nothing to the barman. We laugh at Lillith. She is the butt of the joke: I mean, just look at her face.
But if we encounter this humour repeatedly in real life — if we are Lillith, as it were — and construe this humour as essentially malevolent, it’s obviously bad for our overall health. Much depends on the type/s of humour we frequently encounter, and whether or not we’re the butt of the joke.
***
All of this said, I don’t want to get po-faced about this — after all, this newsletter is called Brands & Humour. Anyone who is ill and decides to read a funny book, or watch funny shows is, at the very least, not going to be doing themselves any harm.
A final, personal note: I remember one Christmas, years ago, when I came down with the flu and spent the festive season in bed, watching a season of Marx Brothers comedies on BBC2. The flu went by New Year’s Eve, but my admiration for Groucho Marx (“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it,”) has lasted over 30 years. Thanks Groucho.
Many thanks for reading,
Paddy
pg@studiogilmore.com
+44 7866 538 233
LinkedIn: here
Martin, Rod & Ford, Thomas: The Psychology of Humor, Second Edition, London, 2018, pp. 320-321.
Ferner, R. E. & Aronson, J. K.: ‘Laughter and MIRTH (methodical investigation of risibility, therapeutic and harmful)’, British Medical Journal 347, 2013.
Martin, Rod & Ford, Thomas: op. cit., p. 339.
Also called disparagement.