Ros’s simple message: we need to take laughter seriously

WENDY FREW talks to ROS BEN-MOSHE about her new book, in which she says it’s time to acknowledge the evidence of the physiological health benefits of laughter.

If there is one thing we can learn from the gruelling years of the Covid pandemic, says wellbeing expert Ros Ben-Moshe, it is that a bit of levity goes a long way in helping build psychological resilience.

We all know how good it feels to laugh: that delicious reaction to something funny, the rhythmical contraction of our diaphragm and the burst of breath from our bellies.

Laughter releases the body's natural feel-good chemicals, such as endorphins; it helps put our troubles into perspective; and it draws us to other people.

However, the value of laughter in our lives is deeper and longer-lasting than most of us realise, Ben-Moshe says. Her new book, The Laugher Effect, details her strategy of using laughter and laughter-based exercises to “turbo-charge joy and positive wellbeing”.

In a growing field of research, it’s become clear that laughter truly is a form of medicine that strengthens the immune system, boosts mood, diminishes pain, and helps protect us from the damaging effects of stress, she says. 

When we laugh, our blood pressure initially rises, as it would with any other aerobic exercise. Then it falls back, helping us to relax. Laughter makes our lungs work harder too, forcing stale air out and allowing fresh air deeper into the lungs. The lymphatic system, which deals with toxins, also gets a boost.

Ben-Moshe says there is even research showing that laughter has an effect similar to meditation on our minds and bodies.

In her book, she also explores laughter and humour through history and how it has connected and healed communities for millennia.

“It’s not some new hippy trippy fad; we have been drawing upon this resource for centuries,” says Ben-Moshe from Melbourne, where she runs the LaughLife Wellbeing Programs, and lectures at La Trobe University about positive psychology and health promotion.

She says we can’t wait to be in the mood for humour. We need to practise laughter-based exercises.

She learnt that the hard way. A trained Laughter Yoga instructor (more on that later), at the age of 42 Ben-Moshe was diagnosed with bowel cancer.

Four days before surgery, she facilitated a Laughter Yoga lingerie party where she surprised herself by laughing away much of her stress. For some time after surgery, she physically could not laugh. Instead, she started a journal where she listed everything she felt grateful for. Within days, her mood lightened, she began to smile, and she had forgotten about her pain, she writes in The Laugher Effect.

“When the nurse came in to administer my morphine and saw me seated upright, serenely smiling, she boomeranged out of my room believing she had wandered into the wrong one. My body’s natural morphine supply had kicked in. That was my ‘aha’ moment. I was embodying the Laughter Effect.”

It led to her first book, Laughing at Cancer: How to Heal with Love, Laughter and Mindfulness (2017). It’s part memoir, part healing guide for anyone struggling through adversity.

Ben-Moshe’s new book is about ways to connect to a joy-laughter mindset without humour-based laughter.

Laughter Yoga is a key therapy in her arsenal. It involves laughter exercises in groups with deep breathing and clapping. What starts as simulated laughter soon becomes real because of laughter’s contagiousness nature.

“The laughter starts in the body first,” Ben-Moshe says. “Because the body can’t think, it can only feel, it sends signals to the brain and it releases a “DOSE” – dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins – of wellbeing hormones.”

Smiling regularly, scheduling time for a shared laugh with family and friends, playing games, and journaling about the things you are grateful for are also part of her Laughter Effect.

You can’t simultaneously inhabit two opposing mindsets, Ben-Moshe says.  “When you’re anchored in positive emotional states like laughter or smiling, you can’t feel stressed or sad. This is one of the key tenets behind Laughter Yoga and Laughter Wellness, from which the Laughter Effect stems.”

Despite a growing body of evidence about the medicinal benefits of these strategies, conventional medicine has yet to take laughter and non-humour-based laughter practises seriously.

“There are not many randomised controlled trials for laughter, for example,” she says.

“So even though there are lots of studies that show [how laughter alleviates] anxiety, depression and pain, I think it will take a while for the medical establishment to put their big research bucks behind laughter and humour as a complementary therapy.”

Ben-Moshe says society tends to “pay homage” to everything that is challenging and difficult in life.

“However, it is important to calm down those stress hormones and increase wellbeing hormones,” she says.

“With habit, we create a habitat for more inner harmony, positivity and joy. And let’s face it, who doesn’t want that?”

The Laughter Effect: How to Build Joy, Resilience and Positivity in Your Life, by Ros Ben-Moshe, is published by Black Inc Books.