Laughter Brings Joy - or Is It The Other Way Around?
I’ve been visiting my sister and her family this week, and my ears have been tickled often with the most beautiful sound—the uninhibited laughter of my eight-year-old niece. It’s genuine and funny and contagious.
Laughter is often infectious (good infection, not pandemic infection). How often have you heard laughter, didn’t know the source, but it made you want to laugh too? You laugh along, and before long you’re just laughing because if feels so good.
I have vivid memories of hard, long, crazy laughter with groups of friends and family members through the years.
Why would I remember laughing? Because it brings back happy, fun memories, which are usually more welcome than the sad ones.
But even in sadness, we often find laughter. Ever been to a funeral where someone tells a funny story about the honored guest who has passed? Gone to a meal afterward or to a family member’s home to eat and share memories? The funny stories about that loved one are the favorites. Why? Because we need to laugh through our tears. Both tears and laughter are healing forces.
The Bible even tells us there’s “at time to cry and a time to laugh” (Ecclesiastes3:4).
We need laughter for our emotional and even physical health.
Madelyn L’Engle said, “A good laugh heals a lot of hurts.” A quick check of the Mayo Clinic website’s Healthy Lifestyle page1 showed a whole list of benefits to laughter—releases stress, increases immune system, relieves pain, improves mood, soothes tension, and even stimulates internal organs! So if you feel your liver is in need of attention, go watch a funny movie!
The medical community isn’t the only source of proof of laughter’s good side. Proverbs 17:22 puts it like this: “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength” (NLT). The Message translates it this way: “A cheerful disposition is good for your health; gloom and doom leave you bone-tired.” Still another version says, “a crushed spirit dries up the bones” (NIV). Who wants dried up bones?
If laughter is so good for us, why don’t we hear it more often? I know the past couple of years (and the current global situations) have not leant themselves to many smiles. It’s been hard to find the silver linings and bright spots in any given day. So it’s even more important to recapture the light airiness of shared giggles or the satisfying feeling of a good belly guffaw.
We all need to become laugh champions—setting a good example for others to follow. So how can we find more laughter in each new day?
Listen to children! They laugh frequently, openly, and often loudly. What is funny to them teaches us that we need to relearn funny as adults.
I love this quote by Maurice Chevalier: “You don’t stop laughing because you grow older. You grow older because you stop laughing.” Find your “young” again through laughter.
We can laugh at the simplest things. Read or watch what is funny to you: cat videos, talking dogs on Facebook or Tik-Tok, funny Instagram posts, comics, light-hearted comedic TV shows or movies.
Look around you. People watch. Funny signs and funny people are everywhere.
Laugh when you’re with others. Tell stories or offer that funny response that’s in the back of your mind. (Just remember that true funny does not resort to the off-color or offensive. And don’t make fun at others’ expense.)
Making fun of yourself, on the other hand, is one of the best ways I’ve found to laugh. And I have plenty of fodder for chuckles at my own expense, believe me!
Just yesterday, while still on my short vacay, we were strolling downtown, passing cute eateries and little shops, when we were stopped by an assertive saleswoman on the sidewalk, hawking samples. I looked over my sister’s shoulder and saw small slivers of something. When offered, I took one and immediately put it up to my mouth to take a bite.
“Don’t eat that!” the salesperson almost yelled at me. “It’s soap!”
I had already discovered my mistake from the taste.
“Why did you eat that?” She was appalled.
“I guess it’s because we’ve been walking past all these specialty food stores and cafes, and we’ve been eating all day.”
It’s all I could think of. And I had to laugh at myself. (And at the fact that the saleswoman would probably tell that story about me over and over.)
And believe me, we laughed about that the rest of the day, and even again this morning when my niece kept reminding me of what “not” to eat.
But the best, deepest, truest, most lasting laughter may come from recognizing what God has done for you. Even after the sorrow and mourning. Scripture says He turns our mourning into dancing. (And if you see me dance, you’ll definitely laugh!)
Look at Sarah and Abraham. In their old age, God promised them a child (and more descendents than the grains of sand on the seashore or the stars in the night sky). Both of them laughed to themselves at the thought, but God ultimately fulfilled that promise. They even named their son Isaac, “he laughs.”
And Sarah declared, “God has brought me laughter. All who hear about this will laugh with me.”
She didn’t laugh to herself. She laughed out loud for any who would hear because of our crazy, amazing, promise-keeping God. He brought her laughter.
He’ll bring us laughter too. After all, that is a byproduct of joy. Jesus Himself said, “I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!” (John 15:11). What is laughter if not joy overflowing? And a smile or a laugh can begin to bring forth joy that has been buried or covered up with sorrow, fear, or hopelessness.
So let loose with that chuckle, that giggle, that chortle. Share that snicker or cackle. Have big loud snort of a laugh with friends and family, even at your own expense.
After all, laughter is the best medicine, as they say. Or as Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews once sang in Mary Poppins (the original, of course), “I love to laugh! The more I laugh, the more I’m a merrier me!”
1.Mayo Clinic Staff, “Stress Relief from Laughter? It’s No Joke,” July 29. 2021, Mayo Clinic websiter, Healthy Lifesstyle, https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/stress-relief/art-20044456.