Laugh Out Loud

Quick Win

There is nothing like laughter to lift your spirits. Do one of these chuckle-inducing activities — or all three.

Try This Today

• Watch a comedy. Choose an old favorite or pick a new one. Bonus points: ​I​nvite someone to join you. Laughing together is even more fun than laughing alone.
• Read the funnies. Find the comics in a newspaper (print or online) or dig up an issue of ​MAD​ magazine — and let the chortling begin.
• Find a funny animal video. Say what you will about the ​i​nternet — it’s all true — but on the redeeming side, it has spawned an endless supply of videos showing cats and dogs doing ridiculous, hilarious things. (A quick search for “funny animal videos” yielded more than 2 billion results.)

Why

Laughter may be the safest, most potent natural mood booster around. It can raise levels of feel-good endorphins — the "runner's high" hormones — and lower levels of stress-related hormones such as cortisol and epinephrine. Among 41,432 adults ages 30–89 living in Fukushima, Japan, after the 2011 earthquake and nuclear disaster, those who reported laughing out loud every day were much less likely to have high blood pressure compared with those who didn’t, as reported in 2021 in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. The use of laughter therapy — inducing laughter — had positive effects on mood and sleep quality in a randomized controlled trial of 109 adults over 65, reported in Geriatrics & Gerontology International in 2011. In a similar study, watching a live stand-up comedy routine weekly for four weeks lowered blood pressure and heart rate and increased levels of serotonin (a feel-good brain chemical) among 17 older adults, according to a 2018 report in Nursing Open.