– See how she smiles, so in Etruscan, with the corners of her mouth and her eyes laughing! The young mother exclaims, bending over her three-week-old daughter. However, he does not manage to capture this memorable moment in a photograph, the Etruscan smile quickly disappears from the face of a newborn.
A smile is such an atavistic and deeply rooted reflex that we notice it not only in the faces of babies, but also in the shapes of random objects. It is so important that its day is celebrated around the world on the first Friday of October. What is so unusual about this seemingly prosaic muscle contraction?
As usual, Freud
A smile is associated with joy. We instinctively assume that it expresses positive emotions. Meanwhile, as in the case of a dog’s tail wagging, smiling and laughing can be our reflex reaction also to a stressful and overwhelming situation. Sigmund Freud knew about it, ascribing to laughter the function of releasing tension. There is a biochemical justification for this: when we smile, laugh, and what’s more: when we think about laughter, endorphins, called molecules of emotions, are released in our body. They give an injection of excellent well-being and can put a person in a euphoric state, comparable even to the effects of drugs. Endorphins also work to relieve pain, similar to morphine. These extraordinary properties of something as easily accessible as a smile and laughter have become the basis for using the cognitive achievements of gelotology, i.e. the science of laughter, in the treatment of various diseases. Gelotherapy is successfully used not only to treat depression, but also cancer. Although there is no scientific evidence that laughter as such has an impact on cancerous tissue and can lead to a direct cure, it can certainly work wonders for the patient’s psyche. A positive attitude and reduction of tension accompanying seriously ill patients is, after all, one of the conditions for the success of any conventional therapy. For this reason, many oncology departments around the world use formal gelotherapy, or at least provide patients with access to comedy films and stand up comedy performances, which are especially popular overseas.
In Poland, the Dr. Clown foundation is a pioneer of laughter therapy, and its motto is: “Smile heals”. Therapists, including volunteers, disguised as clowns, do their best to cheer up kids who need it badly: they visit small patients in hospitals and hospices, children from orphanages, special institutions and social care homes. The value of the photo cannot be overestimated, albeit for some time, from the shoulders of children of stress and tensions, so inadequate to their age and experience.
Laughter has also been appreciated by yogis: hasyayoga or yoga of laughter is based on the values of the combination of breath and laughter control, while laughter is treated as a physical exercise, it does not have to be triggered by a funny event or comic content. Yogis are based on the scientifically proven fact that our bodies cannot distinguish between artificial and natural laughter, so both have the same health benefits. The exercises are held in groups and use one of the guiding principles behind laughter: its contagiousness. The producers of sit-coms believe in the same trait, and with their laughter recorded on the tape they encourage us to laugh at the right moment.
The intimacy of a smile
Not only people, but also animals laugh. Naturally monkeys, but what monkeys don’t do! Besides, dogs and even rats!
Smile is so deep in human nature that even children born blind or deaf laugh. American research shows that we laugh thirty times more often when we are in company, but when we are alone we smile more often than we laugh. It would indicate a certain intimacy of the smile. Anyway, there is something to it, because it would be strange to look at someone who starts to laugh out loud while riding a bus, but watching a man who gently smiles to himself is an extremely pleasant experience. I wonder in how many cases we manage to guess what he just thought about? How many romantic stories are created in the minds of witnesses of his dreaming?
Whether in a group or alone, you should smile and laugh! Because it’s very healthy. Some of the benefits of laughter are even hidden in cliches. The Polish “full-throat laughter” carries encrypted information about the salutary effect of loud laughter on the muscles of the throat and soft palate. Exercising them can help prevent snoring. On the other hand, the English term “belly laughter”, which could be jokingly translated as “belly laughter” directs us to the fact that during loud, sincere laughter, our internal organs are naturally massaged.
It has also been proven that laughter improves blood circulation, because by affecting blood vessels it dilates them and thus causes greater blood flow, lowers blood pressure and thus minimizes the risk of a heart attack. It forces us to take a deep and very invigorating breath, which oxygenates the blood and brain properly and allows us to use the volume of the lungs, and also improves the ability to learn and concentrate. Laughter has a positive effect on our immune system, that is, it improves immunity. It reduces the secretion of stress hormones: adrenaline and cortisol. It funds natural relaxation not only for our nerves, but also for muscles. In a word: let’s reimburse ourselves for this remedy that hides so much potential and is available almost immediately! Let’s not just snobble on Bergman’s films and Faulkner’s novels dense with sentences: let’s watch comedies, even stupid, it’s hard. Let’s read entertaining books, laugh at the oldest jokes about blondes and let’s not defend ourselves against a fool who may catch us during meetings with friends. No matter what the expression lines are, no matter that there is no way to get rid of the laugh hiccups with dignity, let’s laugh! And in October and May and every other day! We have a moral right, and even an obligation, to be endorphin dealers for ourselves and for people close to us, let’s take advantage of it!
Text: Julia Wolin
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