"Why So Serious" as seen in The Magdalen

WHY SO SERIOUS?

66

The mechanisms behind your laugh.

As someone who has been told they have an infectious laugh, I often wonder what it is that makes something funny. Laughter can be a response to a comment, a relief for awkwardness, a sarcastic remark – but how do any of those things prompt a laugh?

From the Greek word, gelos (meaning laughter), the study of laughing and all its forms is called gelotology. Now, we all know someone who’s a little slow to get the joke, but did you know it takes your entire brain to “get” a joke? The left side of your brain analyses the words and their structure, whilst the right side of your brain dissects the meaning behind the joke to help you understand it. Once a joke is told, researchers noted heightened activity in the frontal lobe of the brain – which acts as a control centre for our interpersonal and cognitive skills – suggesting that laughter is an inherently social activity.

‘Laughter knows no language or cultural barriers – it is truly universal communication’

Experts therefore suggest, that due to the numerous parts involved in understanding a funny joke, damage to any one of the regions of the brain may impair your sense of humour and your response to others’ humour. Laughter is a very complex process, especially since it is, in a lot of cases, involuntary!

When you laugh, around 15 of your facial muscles contract, along with your epiglottis – the small flap of elastic cartilage covering the entrance to your larynx, which protects your vocal cords and the air passage to your lungs. During laughter, your body disrupts its normal functionality as the epiglottis partially blocks the larynx, constricting free flow of oxygen to your respiratory system and making you gasp for air. If this happens for a prolonged length of time, you’ll notice your face turning red, and your tear ducts may become overactive, which is why you’ll see people start to cry if they’re laughing really hard!

On a psychological level, gelotologists have found people become more relaxed when they laugh, and their “fight or flight” responses are suppressed, with many studies confirming it can be used as a method of diverting anger – if an aggressive person

FUN FACT:

SCIENCE

Your epiglottis sits behind your tongue and even has taste buds! Perhaps humour really is a matter of taste?

67

joins in the laughter, the risk of conflict or rage may become reduced as the person calms down.

Laughter is, at heart, a social signal, and highly contagious – it is considered a demonstration of a trust and helps strengthen bonds of friendship as well as boosting your immune system. Stress hormones are suppressed when we laugh, and our immune system is boosted by both the release of endorphins (which make you feel happy) and antibodies (which fight infection). Laughter can also give temporary pain relief and an overall sense of well-being (but is unfortunately not yet available on prescription).

The beauty of it all is there is no language to laughter – we all laugh and respond to laughter in similar ways. Laughter knows no language or cultural barriers – it is truly universal communication.

Our brains always look for patterns – so when something doesn’t follow a pattern we know it can surprise and intrigue us, triggering laughter.

You have just learned something new, and a new pattern has formed in your brain – so the next time the same joke is told, or the same thing happens, it’s not as funny: there’s nothing new or surprising.

But then why aren’t we all roaring with laughter during every lecture? We’re still learning new stuff, but this kind of learning follows the logical order of what we’ve learned previously – so this kind of new knowledge isn’t laughter material.

Despite comedy being all about learning, and enforcing a new way of thinking and observing the world around us, laughing and having a sense of humour are very different things. We may all laugh, but what makes us laugh very much depends on where we’re from, our language, and the socio-historical contexts with which we’re familiar.

‘Laughter is an inherently social activity’ Different people respond to things in a variety of ways: different events can even provoke different expressions of laughter. A small chuckle, a roaring guffaw, tears.

The pratfall may not translate across borders, but there’s no denying humans are made to laugh.

Mila Georgieva