You Used to Laugh, But Now You LOL
How to recover the deep belly laughs you lost when you became an adult
As a kid, you laughed at everything. Silly jokes. Funny faces. Farts, or anything that remotely sounded like one. You had deep belly laughs, the kind which let you fall fully into the hilarity of the situation.
But as you got older, you probably started to find things less funny. While babies manage to pack in an average of 300 laughs per day, adults laugh a meager 20 times. Though we drop LOLs and cry-laughing emojis in our messages with abandon, and view humor as a character strength, the amount of real laughter we experience has dwindled.
It’s hard to know exactly why, as laughter is difficult to study. Perhaps it’s because people laugh more while in the company of others, and we are often alone — or perhaps it’s because we’re denying our darker impulses. But the act of joyous laughter matters more than we think. When it comes to our health, laughing reduces stress hormones like cortisol and epinephrine, increases our blood flow and tolerance for pain, and strengthens our immune system by enhancing our T-cell function and boosting the number of antibody-producing cells. (Even the anticipation of something funny has been shown to boost endorphins by 27%.) Laughter also strengthens ties within groups. As cultural…
